Prescient and adaptive point-of-sale systems

ABSTRACT

Systems, apparatus, methods, and non-transitory media for providing prescient and adaptive point-of-sale services via electronic networks are discussed herein. Some embodiments may include a system with one or more servers. The one or more servers may be configured to generate digital consumer tokens and provide the digital consumer tokens to consumer devices for sharing with merchant devices. When a merchant device receives the digital consumer token, the merchant device may forward the digital consumer token to the one or more servers in exchange for consumer data to facilitate consumer service. In some embodiments, the one or more servers may be configured to provide point-of-sale interfaces that adapt to different consumer preferences or consumer device signals. Some embodiments may provide for consumer interfaces that allow consumers to manage their electronic identity at various (e.g., merchant) locations.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/099,013, titled “Prescient and Adaptive Point-Of-Sale Systems,” andof U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/099,019, titled “Prescient andAdaptive Point-Of-Sale Systems,” each filed Dec. 31, 2014, and each ofwhich is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

FIELD

Embodiments of the invention relate, generally, to techniques forproviding prescient and adaptive point-of-sale systems that arestructured and configured to facilitate consumer and merchanttransactions and related activity.

BACKGROUND

Financial transactions between merchants and consumers typically requirethe consumers to present a form of payment to the merchant. As a result,consumers may be required to keep wallets that include paymentinstruments such as cash, credit cards, debit cards, deal vouchers,coupons, reward tracking cards, checks or the like that may be acceptedby merchants and/or devices used at the point-of-sale locations (e.g.,point-of-sale devices, such as cash registers, credit card readers,etc.). In addition, such point-of-sale devices may communicate withmerchant inventory management systems. Applicant has identified a numberof problems associated with conventional point-of-sale devices andmerchant inventory management systems. Through applied effort,ingenuity, and innovation, solutions to such problems have beenidentified and are described in detail below.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Some embodiments may provide for a prescient and adaptive point-of-salesystem configured to facilitate interactions between merchant andconsumer devices. For example, the system may include one or moreservers including: communications circuitry configured to connect withconsumer devices and merchant devices via a network. The one or moreservers may further include consumer profile service circuitryconfigured to: generate a digital consumer token; associate the digitalconsumer token with a consumer account record of a consumer database;and provide, via the network, the digital consumer token to a consumerdevice associated with the consumer account record. The one or moreservers may further include data collection circuitry configured to:receive, via the network, electronic marketing information from theconsumer device; and receive, via the network, inventory data from afirst merchant device associated with a merchant, wherein the inventorydata indicates available ingredients of menu items offered by themerchant. The one or more servers may further include point-of-saleservice circuitry configured to: receive, via the network, the digitalconsumer token from a second merchant device indicating that theconsumer device has provided the digital consumer token to the secondmerchant device; in response to receiving the digital consumer token:identify the consumer account record based on the digital consumertoken; generate a point-of-sale interface based on the inventory dataand the electronic marketing information, wherein the point-of-saleinterface includes a menu display including selectable menu items; andprovide, via the network, the point-of-sale interface to at least one ofthe second merchant device and the consumer device.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may include:discretionary data; clickstream data; transaction data; consumerlocation data; or one or more real-time consumer device signals. Thedata collection circuitry may be further configured to receive, via thenetwork, menu item data from one or more of the first merchant deviceand the second merchant device indicating menu items offered by themerchant and associated ingredients of the menu items. The point-of-saleservice circuitry configured to generate the point-of-sale interface mayinclude the point-of-sale service circuitry being configured to:determine candidate menu items from menu items offered by the merchantbased on the inventory data indicating available ingredients of the menuitems and the menu item data indicating the associated ingredients ofthe menu items; determine menu item scores for the candidate menu itemsbased on the discretionary data, the clickstream data, the transactiondata, the consumer location data, and the one or more real-time consumerdevice signals; determine a ranking of the candidate menu items based onthe menu item scores; and determine the selectable menu items of themenu display from the candidate menu items based on the ranking.

In some embodiments, the menu item data may include price dataindicating prices associated with the menu items offered by themerchant. The point-of-sale service circuitry configured to determinethe menu item scores may include the point-of-sale service circuitrybeing configured to compare the price data with a consumer pricepreference determined based on one or more of the transaction data, theclickstream data, and the discretionary data.

In some embodiments, the selectable menu items may be ordered within themenu display based at least in part on the ranking.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The data collection circuitry may be furtherconfigured to receive, via the network, menu item data from one or moreof the first merchant device and the second merchant device indicatingmenu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredients of themenu items. The point-of-sale service circuitry is further configured todetermine the selectable menu items from menu items offered by themerchant based on the menu item data indicating the associatedingredients of the menu items and the electronic marketing informationindicating the undesirable ingredient, wherein a menu item including theundesirable ingredient is: excluded from the selectable menu items; orincluded with the selectable menu items with an indication that the menuitem includes the undesirable ingredient.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The data collection circuitry may be furtherconfigured to receive, via the network, menu item data from one or moreof the first merchant device and the second merchant device indicatingmenu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredients of themenu items. The point-of-sale service circuitry may be furtherconfigured to: receive input data indicating a selected menu item fromthe selectable menu items of the menu display; and in response toreceiving the input data indicating the selected menu item, determinewhether the selected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient basedon the menu item data indicating the ingredients of the menu items; andprovide a warning indication to the point-of-sale interface when theselected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The data collection circuitry may be furtherconfigured to receive, via the network, menu item data from one or moreof the first merchant device and the second merchant device indicatingmenu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredients of themenu items. The point-of-sale service circuitry may be furtherconfigured to: receive input data indicating a selected menu item fromthe selectable menu items of the menu display; in response to receivingthe input data indicating the selected menu item, determine whether theselected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient based on the menuitem data indicating the ingredients of the menu items; provide a removeingredient button to the point-of-sale service interface when theselected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient; and associatethe selected menu item without the undesirable ingredient with a tab inresponse to receiving a selection of the remove ingredient button.

In some embodiments, the data collection circuitry may be furtherconfigured to: receive the electronic marketing information includingdiscretionary data from the consumer device, the discretionary dataindicating one or more of consumer interests, hobbies, age, gender,group membership, and location; and receive the electronic marketinginformation including one or more real-time consumer device signalsindicating one or more of a consumer device time and a consumer devicelocation. The consumer profile service circuitry may be configured tocreate a plurality of consumer profiles associated with the consumeraccount record based on the discretionary data. The point-of-saleservice circuitry may be further configured to: in response to receivingthe digital consumer token: determine a selected consumer profile fromthe plurality of consumer profiles based on the one or more real-timeconsumer device signals; and provide the selected consumer profile tothe second merchant device via the network.

In some embodiments, the discretionary data further may indicateeligible merchants that are allowed to receive consumer profiles createdbased on the discretionary data. The point-of-sale service circuitry maybe configured to: determine whether the merchant associated with thesecond merchant device is an eligible merchant allowed to receive theselected consumer profile based on the discretionary data; and providethe selected consumer profile to the second merchant device in responseto determining the merchant associated with the second merchant deviceis an eligible merchant.

In some embodiments, the point-of-sale service circuitry may be furtherconfigured to determine the selectable menu items of the menu displaybased on the selected consumer profile.

In some embodiments, the digital consumer token may be generated basedon a random code that is independent of consumer identifying data andthe electronic marketing information.

In some embodiments, the first merchant device and the second merchantdevice are the same device.

In some embodiments, the consumer profile service circuitry may befurther configured to: receive, via the network and from the consumerdevice, discretionary data; generate a public consumer profile based ona first portion of the discretionary data; generate a private consumerprofile based on a second portion of the discretionary data; and inresponse to receiving the digital consumer token, provide, via thenetwork, at least one of the public consumer profile and the privateconsumer profile to the second merchant device.

Some embodiments may provide for a machine-implemented method. Themethod may include: generating, by processing circuitry, a digitalconsumer token; associating, by the processing circuitry, the digitalconsumer token with a consumer account record of a consumer database;and providing, by the processing circuitry and via a network, thedigital consumer token to a consumer device associated with the consumeraccount record; receiving, by the processing circuitry and via thenetwork, electronic marketing information from the consumer device; andreceiving, by the processing circuitry and via the network, inventorydata from a first merchant device associated with a merchant, whereinthe inventory data indicates available ingredients of menu items offeredby the merchant; and receiving, by the processing circuitry and via thenetwork, the digital consumer token from a second merchant deviceindicating that the consumer device has provided the consumer device tothe second merchant device; in response to receiving the digitalconsumer token, and by the processing circuitry: identifying theconsumer account record based on the digital consumer token; generatinga point-of-sale interface based on the inventory data and the electronicmarketing information, wherein the point-of-sale interface includes amenu display including selectable menu items; and providing, via thenetwork, the point-of-sale interface to at least one of the secondmerchant device and the consumer device.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may include:discretionary data; clickstream data; transaction data; consumerlocation data; or one or more real-time consumer device signals. Themethod further may include, by the circuitry receiving, via the network,menu item data from one or more of the first merchant device and thesecond merchant device indicating menu items offered by the merchant andassociated ingredients of the menu items. Generating the point-of-saleinterface may include: determining candidate menu items from menu itemsoffered by the merchant based on the inventory data indicating availableingredients of the menu items and the menu item data indicating theassociated ingredients of the menu items; determining menu item scoresfor the candidate menu items based on the discretionary data, theclickstream data, the transaction data, the consumer location data, andthe one or more real-time consumer device signals; determining a rankingof the candidate menu items based on the menu item scores; anddetermining the selectable menu items of the menu display from thecandidate menu items based on the ranking.

In some embodiments, the menu item data may include price dataindicating prices associated with the menu items offered by themerchant. Determining the menu item scores may include comparing theprice data with a consumer price preference determined based on one ormore of the transaction data, the clickstream data, and thediscretionary data.

In some embodiments, the selectable menu items may be ordered within themenu display based at least in part on the ranking.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The method may further include, by theprocessing circuitry: receiving, via the network, menu item data fromone or more of the first merchant device and the second merchant deviceindicating menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; and determining the selectable menu items from menuitems offered by the merchant based on the menu item data indicating theassociated ingredients of the menu items and the electronic marketinginformation indicating the undesirable ingredient, wherein a menu itemincluding the undesirable ingredient is: excluded from the selectablemenu items; or included with the selectable menu items with anindication that the menu item includes the undesirable ingredient.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The method further may include, by theprocessing circuitry: receiving, via the network, menu item data fromone or more of the first merchant device and the second merchant deviceindicating menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; receiving input data indicating a selected menu itemfrom the selectable menu items of the menu display; in response toreceiving the input data indicating the selected menu item, determiningwhether the selected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient basedon the menu item data indicating the ingredients of the menu items; andproviding a warning indication to the point-of-sale interface when theselected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient. The method may further include, by theprocessing circuitry: receiving, via the network, menu item data fromone or more of the first merchant device and the second merchant deviceindicating menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; and receiving input data indicating a selected menuitem from the selectable menu items of the menu display; in response toreceiving the input data indicating the selected menu item, determiningwhether the selected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient basedon the menu item data indicating the ingredients of the menu items;providing a remove ingredient button to the point-of-sale serviceinterface when the selected menu item includes the undesirableingredient; and associating the selected menu item without theundesirable ingredient with a tab in response to receiving a selectionof the remove ingredient button.

In some embodiments, the method may further include, by the processingcircuitry: receiving the electronic marketing information includingdiscretionary data from the consumer device, the discretionary dataindicating one or more of consumer interests, hobbies, age, gender,group membership, and location; receiving the electronic marketinginformation including one or more real-time consumer device signalsindicating one or more of a consumer device time and a consumer devicelocation; creating a plurality of consumer profiles associated with theconsumer account record based on the discretionary data; in response toreceiving the digital consumer token: determine a selected consumerprofile from the plurality of consumer profiles based on the one or morereal-time consumer device signals; and provide the selected consumerprofile to the second merchant device via the network.

In some embodiments, the discretionary data further may indicateeligible merchants that are allowed to receive consumer profiles createdbased on the discretionary data. The method further may include, by theprocessing circuitry: determining whether the merchant associated withthe second merchant device is an eligible merchant allowed to receivethe selected consumer profile based on the discretionary data; andproviding the selected consumer profile to the second merchant device inresponse to determining the merchant associated with the second merchantdevice is an eligible merchant.

In some embodiments, the method may further include, by the processingcircuitry, determining the selectable menu items of the menu displaybased on the selected consumer profile.

In some embodiments, the digital consumer token may be generated basedon a random code that is independent of consumer identifying data andthe electronic marketing information.

In some embodiments, the first merchant device and the second merchantdevice are the same device.

In some embodiments, the method may further include, by the processingcircuitry: receiving, via the network and from the consumer device,discretionary data; generating a public consumer profile based on afirst portion of the discretionary data; generating a private consumerprofile based on a second portion of the discretionary data; and inresponse to receiving the digital consumer token, providing, via thenetwork, at least one of the public consumer profile and the privateconsumer profile to the second merchant device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Having thus described some embodiments in general terms, reference willnow be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarilydrawn to scale, and wherein:

FIG. 1 shows an example of a system configured in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of example circuitry configuredin accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 3 depicts an example data flow illustrating interactions between aserver, one or more consumer devices, and one or more merchant devicesin accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 4 shows a schematic block diagram of example circuitry configuredin accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 5 shows a schematic block diagram of example circuitry configuredin accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method for generating one ormore consumer profiles in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example method for updating consumerprofiles based on tracking consumer activity in accordance with someembodiments;

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example method for adapting apoint-of-sale interface in accordance with some embodiments;

FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of an example method for menu item attributediscovery in accordance with some embodiments; and

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example of a method for providing publicand private consumer profiles in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some embodiments of the present invention will now be described morefully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in whichsome, but not all embodiments of the invention are shown. Indeed, theinvention may be embodied in many different forms and should not beconstrued as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, theseembodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicablelegal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.

OVERVIEW

Some embodiments may provide for a computing system configured tofacilitate improved consumer and merchant interactions. For example, thecomputing system may include a PA service (or “PA service”) that isconfigured to facilitate transactions and communications betweenmerchant devices (e.g., tablet computers, laptops, smartphones, wearabledevices such as smart watches or smart eye glasses, etc.) and consumerdevices (e.g., tablet computers, laptops, smartphones, wearable devicessuch as smart watches or smart eye glasses, etc.). The PA serviceleverages data from such transactions and communications to offer aservice that appears “prescient” (i.e., appears to know preferencesand/or requirements in advance) to both consumers and merchants alike.

In some embodiments, the PA service may be a third party central networksupported by mobile software applications that are installed to one ormore merchant devices and one or more consumer devices. In anotherembodiment, the PA service may be a merchant network supported by mobilesoftware applications that are installed to one or more merchant devicesand one or more consumer devices.

In some embodiments, the PA service may be configured to provideconsumer identity (or consumer profile) management at multiplelocations. The multiple locations may be associated with differentmerchants and/or other non-merchant organizations. The PA service mayprovide a centralized interface for consumer creation and management ofthe consumer profiles. For example, the PA service may allow consumersto selectively share digital consumer information with merchants (e.g.,retail shops, restaurants, kiosks, spas, etc.) to facilitatecommunications and/or transactions, often without the consumer speakinga word or pressing a button.

For example, in some embodiments, the PA service is configured to allowthe consumer to create one or more consumer profiles and populate theconsumer profiles with digital consumer information. The PA service mayreceive discretionary data from a consumer device and may use thediscretionary data to generate a public consumer profile and one or moreprivate consumer profiles. Consumer data may be generated based on thediscretionary data, and various subsets of the consumer data may beassociated with the public consumer profile and the one or more privateconsumer profiles. In some embodiments, the contents of the profiles andthe sharing of the contents (e.g., defining trusted or pre-approvedmerchants) may be defined by a set of sharing rules specified by theconsumer device.

When a consumer carrying a consumer device running a PA service mobileapplication or otherwise suitably configured consumer device, and theconsumer device comes into communication proximity to a merchant devicerunning a PA service mobile application (i.e., the consumer walks intoor near a merchant shop), the PA service may authenticate the consumer(e.g., based on receiving a digital consumer token associated with theconsumer profiles) and determine whether the merchant device ispre-approved or trusted. Untrusted merchant devices may be provided withthe public consumer profile. In this regard, for example, a restaurantmerchant may understand that a given consumer has a peanut allergysimply by the consumer stepping through the restaurant door and withoutthe consumer speaking a word. Similarly, trusted merchant devices mayreceive a suitable private consumer profile and the associated privateconsumer profile data (e.g., including payment data).

In some embodiments, the PA service may update a consumer profile and/orother consumer account information based on based on real-time consumerdevice signals and other contextual data. For example, the PA servicemay detect that a consumer is on vacation or on a business trip based onlocation data and calendar data supplied by the mobile softwareapplication running on the consumer device and thereby update the apublic and/or private profile of the consumer with a “traveling” flag,which may assist merchants by allowing them to offer a more targeted setof “traveler” promotions that may of greater interest or relevance tothe consumer.

In some embodiments, the PA service may be configured to allow theconsumer to authorize sharing of private consumer profile and/orassociated private consumer information (i.e., digital consumerinformation that is not part of the public consumer profile) byprompting the consumer to provide express authorization. In one example,such private consumer profiles may include stored payment information(e.g., credit card information) that is used to complete a transaction.The PA service may be configured to receive express authorization of theconsumer in a variety for forms. For example, a consumer may confirmhis/her express authorization to the PA service by engaging a consumerinterface of the consumer device (e.g., pressing or swiping a buybutton, etc.), by engaging one or more wearables (e.g., waving a hand orarm that is wearing a smart wristwatch, etc.), by providing a biometricidentifier (e.g., a finerprint, retina scan, voice capture, etc.), byengaging a relevant merchant device (e.g., pressing or swiping a buybutton, posing a “thumbs up sign” to a merchant device camera, etc.), orthrough a variety of additional means as discussed below. In that sense,the system may provide for on-demand approval of merchants for access toprivate consumer profile data. In some embodiments, a merchant maybecome trusted based on the on-demand approval for subsequenttransactions.

In some embodiments, the PA service may be further configured, through amobile software application running on a merchant device or a consumerdevice, to provide a point-of-sale (POS) interface that is adaptive toreal-time conditions of the consumer. The point-of-sale interface may bedisplayed on a merchant device and/or consumer device (e.g.,self-service) and may be customized based digital consumer information(e.g., the public and/or private consumer profiles). For example, in theabove restaurant example, items including peanuts may be removed fromthe POS interface based on receiving peanut allergy information from thepublic consumer profile of the consumer. In some embodiments, the PAservice may be further configured to provide payment processing, tab orcheckout management, inventory management, employee/payroll management,promotion redemption, electronic marketing communications, and otherfunctionality as discussed in detail below.

In some embodiments, the PA system may be further configured toaggregate digital consumer information, transaction data, discretionarydata, location data, clickstream data, communication channel data,real-time consumer device signals, promotion data, product/inventorydata, etc. and to apply machine-learning algorithms to improve theadaptive and prescient performance of the PA system. In someembodiments, aggregated and anonymized PA system data may be provided tomerchants to support programmatically determined improvements ofmerchant goods, services, electronic marketing communications, point-ofsale systems, employee management/training systems, inventory managementsystems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and otherrelated systems as discussed in detail below.

The PA service may serve as an aggregator and as a communication hubbetween multiple different merchants and consumers. This may beparticularly desirable for small business merchants that may not havethe technological infrastructure, access, or traffic to support suchdata aggregation. The PA service may provide a hub for aggregated and/oranonymized data that can be distributed (e.g., based on sharing rules)between merchants of different sizes, types, industries, price bands,verticals, etc. In some embodiments, the PA service may be configured tofacilitate crowdsourcing of information to fill data gaps or otherwiseimprove data quality.

In some embodiments, the PA system may be configured to providemerchants with programmatic inventory management and item attributediscovery. For example, the PA service may be configured toprogrammatically identify item attributes and taxonomies of merchantgoods and services with minimal or no merchant interaction. In arestaurant example, the PA service may utilize sensors instrumentedthroughout a kitchen area to discover item attribute level data (e.g.,ingredients for various dishes). The PA service may additionally oralternatively use crowdsourcing between merchants for item data. Theitem data, including attribute level data, may leveraged to determineitem rankings, items including allergic ingredients, etc.

Definitions

As used herein, the terms “data,” “content,” “information,” and similarterms may be used interchangeably to refer to data capable of beingtransmitted, received, and/or stored in accordance with embodiments ofthe present invention. Thus, use of any such terms should not be takento limit the spirit and scope of embodiments of the present invention.Further, where a computing device is described herein to receive datafrom another computing device, it will be appreciated that the data maybe received directly from the another computing device or may bereceived indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices, suchas, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, network accesspoints, base stations, hosts, and/or the like, sometimes referred toherein as a “network.” Similarly, where a computing device is describedherein to send data to another computing device, it will be appreciatedthat the data may be sent directly to the another computing device ormay be sent indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices,such as, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, networkaccess points, base stations, hosts, and/or the like.

As used herein, the term “prescient and adaptive point-of-sale service”or “PA service” may include a service that is accessible via one or morecomputing devices and that is operable to provide POS related serviceson behalf of one or more providers that offer goods, services,experiences and/or the like (or “items,” as used herein). In someexamples, the PA service may take the form of a payment processor, amenu generator, a tab or checkout manager, an inventory manager, anemployee/payroll manager, a redemption authority, a rewards provider, anentity in a financial network, a promoter, an agent and/or the like. Assuch, the PA service is, in some example embodiments, configured topresent point-of-sale interfaces (e.g., including one or more menudisplays, check-out screens, promotion or item recommendations,promotion redemption displays, etc.), provide consumer informationand/or consumer profiles to merchant devices to facilitate consumerservice, generate menu displays that are tailored to consumerpreferences, facilitate preparation of menu items, track merchantinventory levels and generate menus based on the inventory levels,process payments, order additional merchant inventory, and relatedactivities.

In some embodiments, the PA service may be further configured to presentone or more promotions via one or more impressions, accept payments forpromotions from consumers, issue instruments upon acceptance of anoffer, participate in redemption, generate rewards, provide a point ofsale device or service, issue payments to providers and/or or otherwiseparticipate in the exchange of goods, services or experiences forcurrency, value and/or the like. The PA service is also, in some exampleembodiments, configured to offer merchant services such as promotionbuilding (e.g., assisting merchants with selecting parameters for newlycreated promotions), promotion counseling (e.g., offering information tomerchants to assist with using promotions as marketing), promotionanalytics (e.g., offering information to merchants to provide data andanalysis regarding the costs and return-on-investment associated withoffering promotions), and the like.

As used herein, the terms “provider” and “merchant” may be usedinterchangeably and may include, but are not limited to, a businessowner, consigner, shopkeeper, tradesperson, vendor, operator,entrepreneur, agent, dealer, organization or the like that is in thebusiness of a providing a good, service or experience to a consumer,facilitating the provision of a good, service or experience to aconsumer and/or otherwise operating in the stream of commerce. The“provider” or “merchant” need not actually market a product or servicevia the promotion and marketing service, as some merchants or providersmay utilize the PA service only for the purpose of gathering marketinginformation, demographic information, or the like, or receivingpoint-of-sale functionality.

As used herein, the term “consumer” should be understood to refer to arecipient of goods, services, promotions, media, or the like provided bythe PA service and/or a merchant. Consumers may include, withoutlimitation, individuals, groups of individuals, corporations, othermerchants, and the like.

As used herein, the term “promotion” may include, but is not limited to,any type of offered, presented or otherwise indicated reward, discount,coupon, credit, deal, incentive, discount, media or the like that isindicative of a promotional value or the like that upon purchase oracceptance results in the issuance of an instrument that may be usedtoward at least a portion of the purchase of particular goods, servicesand/or experiences defined by the promotion. Promotions may havedifferent values in different contexts. For example, a promotion mayhave a first value associated with the cost paid by a consumer, known asan “accepted value.” When redeemed, the promotion may be used topurchase a “promotional value” representing the retail price of thegoods. The promotion may also have a “residual value,” reflecting theremaining value of the promotion after expiration. Although consumersmay be primarily focused on the accepted and promotional value of thepromotion, a promotion may also have additional associated values. Forexample, a “cost value” may represent the cost to the merchant to offerthe promotion via the PA service, where the PA service receives the costvalue for each promotion sold to a consumer. The promotion may alsoinclude a “return on investment” value, representing a quantifiedexpected return on investment to the merchant for each promotion sold.

For example, consider a promotion offered by the PA service for a $50meal promotion for $25 at a particular restaurant. In this example, $25would be the accepted value charged to the consumer. The consumer wouldthen be able to redeem the promotion at the restaurant for $50 appliedtoward their meal check. This $50 would be the promotional value of thepromotion. If the consumer did not use the promotion before expiration,the consumer might be able to obtain a refund of $22.50, representing a10% fee to recoup transaction costs for the merchant and/or PA service.This $22.50 would be the residual value of the promotion. If the PAservice charged the merchant $3.00 to offer the promotion, the $3.00 feewould be the “cost value.” The “return on investment” value of thepromotion might be dynamically calculated by the PA service based on theexpected repeat business generated by the marketing of the promotion,the particular location, the demographics of the consumer, and the like.For example, the return on investment value might be $10.00, reflectingthe long term additional profit expected by the merchant as a result ofbringing in a new customer through use of a promotion.

Promotions may be provided to consumers and redeemed via the use of an“instrument.” Instruments may represent and embody the terms of thepromotion from which the instrument resulted. For example, instrumentsmay include, but are not limited to, any type of physical credential(e.g., magnetic strip cards or printed barcodes), virtual accountbalance (e.g., a promotion being associated with a particular useraccount on a merchant website), secret code (e.g., a character stringthat can be entered on a merchant website or point-of-sale), tender,electronic certificate, medium of exchange, voucher, or the like whichmay be used in a transaction for at least a portion of the purchase,acquisition, procurement, consumption or the like of goods, servicesand/or experiences as defined by the terms of the promotion.

In some examples, the instrument may take the form of tender that has agiven value that is exchangeable for goods, services and/or experiencesand/or a reduction in a purchase price of a particular good, service orexperience. In some examples, the instrument may have multiple values,such as accepted value, a promotional value and/or a residual value. Forexample, using the aforementioned restaurant as the example provider, anelectronic indication in a mobile application that shows $50 of value tobe used as payment for a meal check at the restaurant. In some examples,the accepted value of the instrument is defined by the value exchangedfor the instrument. In some examples, the promotional value is definedby the promotion from which the instrument resulted and is the value ofthe instrument beyond the accepted value. In some examples, the residualvalue is the value after redemption, the value after the expiry or otherviolation of a redemption parameter, the return or exchange value of theinstrument and/or the like.

As used herein, the term “redemption” refers to the use, exchange orother presentation of an instrument for at least a portion of a good,service or experience as defined by the instrument and its relatedpromotion. In some examples, redemption includes the verification ofvalidity of the instrument. In other example embodiments, redemption mayinclude an indication that a particular instrument has been redeemed andthus no longer retains an actual, promotional and/or residual value(e.g., full redemption). In other example embodiments, redemption mayinclude the redemption of at least a portion of its actual, promotionaland/or residual value (e.g., partial redemption). An example ofredemption, using the aforementioned restaurant as the example provider,is the exchange of the $50 instrument and $50 to settle a $100 mealcheck.

As used herein, the term “impression” refers to a metric for measuringhow frequently consumers are provided with marketing information relatedto a particular good, service, or promotion. Impressions may be measuredin various different manners, including, but not limited to, measuringthe frequency with which content is served to a consumer (e.g., thenumber of times images, websites, or the like are requested byconsumers), measuring the frequency with which electronic marketingcommunications including particular content are sent to consumers (e.g.,a number of e-mails sent to consumers or number of e-mails includingparticular promotion content), measuring the frequency with whichelectronic marketing communications are received by consumers (e.g., anumber of times a particular e-mail is read), or the like. Impressionsmay be provided through various forms of media, including but notlimited to communications, displays, or other perceived indications,such as e-mails, text messages, application alerts, mobile applications,other type of electronic interface or distribution channel and/or thelike, of one or more promotions.

As used herein, the term “electronic marketing information” refers tovarious electronic data and signals that may be interpreted by a PAservice to provide improved point-of-sale interfaces and/or electronicmarketing communications. Electronic marketing information may include,without limitation, clickstream data (defined below), transaction data(defined below), location data (defined below), communication channeldata (defined below), discretionary data (defined below), real-timeconsumer device signals (defined below) or any other data stored by orreceived by the PA service for use in providing point-of-saleinterfaces. In some embodiments, the electronic marketing informationmay further be used to provide electronic communications to consumers.

As used herein, the term “clickstream data” refers to electronicinformation indicating content viewed, accessed, edited, or retrieved byconsumers. This information may be electronically processed and analyzedby a PA service to improve the quality of electronic marketing andcommerce transactions offered by, through, and in conjunction with thePA service. It should be understood that the term “clickstream” is notintended to be limited to mouse clicks. For example, the clickstreamdata may include various other consumer interactions, including withoutlimitation, mouse-over events and durations, the amount of time spent bythe consumer viewing particular content, the rate at which impressionsof particular content result in sales associated with that content,demographic information associated with each particular consumer, dataindicating other content accessed by the consumer (e.g., browser cookiedata), the time or date on which content was accessed, the frequency ofimpressions for particular content, associations between particularconsumers or consumer demographics and particular impressions, and/orthe like.

As used herein, the term “transaction data” refers to electronicinformation indicating that a transaction is occurring or has occurredvia either a merchant or the PA service. Transaction data may alsoinclude information relating to the transaction. For example,transaction data may include consumer payment or billing information,consumer shipping information, items purchased by the consumer, amerchant rewards account number associated with the consumer, the typeof shipping selected by the consumer for fulfillment of the transaction,or the like.

As used herein, the term “location data” refers to electronicinformation indicating a particular location. Location data may beassociated with a consumer, a merchant, or any other entity capable ofinteraction with the PA service. For example, in some embodimentslocation data is provided by a location services circuitry, a locationservices module of a consumer mobile device, and/or location sensors(e.g., GPS, operating system location services, WiFi access pointidentification sensors, etc.) that are configured to generate electronicinformation or signals that are indicative of the context, position, orenvironment surrounding the consumer device. In some embodiments,location data may be provided by a merchant indicating the location ofconsumers within their retail location. In some embodiments, locationdata may be provided by merchants to indicate the current location ofthe merchant (e.g., a food truck or delivery service). It should beappreciated that location data may be provided by various systemscapable of determining location information, including, but not limitedto, global positioning service receivers, indoor navigation systems,cellular tower triangulation techniques, video surveillance systems, orradio frequency identification (RFID) location systems.

As used herein, the term “communication channel data” refers toelectronic information relating to the particular device orcommunication channel upon which a merchant or consumer communicateswith the PA service. In this regard, communication channel data mayinclude the type of device used by the consumer or merchant (e.g., smartphone, desktop computer, laptop, netbook, tablet computer), the InternetProtocol (IP) address of the device, the available bandwidth of aconnection, login credentials used to access the channel (e.g., a useraccount and/or password for accessing the PA service), or any other datapertaining to the communication channel between the PA service and anentity external to the PA service.

As used herein, the term “discretionary data” refers to electronicinformation provided by a merchant or consumer explicitly to the PAservice in support of improved interaction with the PA service. Uponregistering with the PA service or at any time thereafter, the consumeror merchant may be invited to provide information that aids the PAservice in providing services that are targeted to the particular needsof the consumer or merchant. For example, the discretionary data mayinclude any suitable consumer information that can be used, such asconsumer information related to health (e.g., undesirable ingredientssuch as allergy information, weight, blood pressure, etc.), habitinformation, consumer status, apparel size (e.g., shoe size, clothingsize, etc.), color blindness, visual impairment, auditory impairment,price flexibility or price bands, transaction data (e.g., indicatingpast purchases), and/or environmental data (e.g., preferred weather,temperature, humidity, precipitation, etc.). A merchant may indicate thetype of goods or services provided, their retail storefront location,ingredients or recipes for menu items, menu information, employeeinformation, contact information, hours of operation, or the like.

It should be appreciated that the term “discretionary data” is intendedto refer to information voluntarily and explicitly provided to the PAservice, such as by completing a form or survey on a website orapplication hosted by the PA service. However, is should be appreciatedthat the examples of discretionary data provided above may also bedetermined implicitly or through review or analysis of other electronicmarketing information provided to the PA service. It should also beappreciated that the PA service may also gate access to certain featuresor tools based on whether certain discretionary data has been provided.For example, the consumer may be required to provide informationrelating to their interests or location during a registration process.

As used herein, the term “real-time consumer device signals” refers toelectronic information generated by sensor circuitry of a consumerdevice. For example, the sensor circuitry may include one or moreenvironmental sensors (e.g., temperature, humidity, etc.), biologicalsensors (e.g., thermometer, heart rate monitor), visual sensors (e.g., afront facing camera configured to capture consumer expressions and/orgestures), and/or motion sensors (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, etc).

As used herein, the term “offering parameters” refers to terms andconditions under which a promotion is offered by a PA service toconsumers. These offering parameters may include parameters, bounds,considerations and/or the like that outline or otherwise define theterms, timing, constraints, limitations, rules or the like under whichthe promotion is sold, offered, marketed, or otherwise provided toconsumers. Example offering parameters include, using the aforementionedrestaurant as the example provider, limit one instrument per person,total of 100 instruments to be issued, a run duration of when thepromotion will be marketed via the PA service, and parameters foridentifying consumers to be offered the promotion (e.g., factorsinfluencing how consumer locations are used to offer a promotion).

As used herein, the term “redemption parameters” refers to terms andconditions for redeeming or otherwise obtaining the benefit ofpromotions obtained from a PA service. The redemption parameters mayinclude parameters, bounds, considerations and/or the like that outlinethe term, timing, constraints, limitations, rules or the like for howand/or when an instrument may be redeemed. For example, the redemptionparameters may include an indication that the instrument must beredeemed prior to a specified deadline, for a specific good, service orexperience and/or the like. For example, using the aforementionedrestaurant as the example provider, the redemption parameters mayspecify a limit of one instrument per visit, that the promotion must beused in store only, or that the promotion must be used by a certaindate.

As used herein, the term “electronic marketing communication” refers toany electronically generated information content provided by the PAservice to a consumer for the purpose of marketing a promotion, good, orservice to the consumer. Electronic marketing communications may includea consumer interface and may be provided via various communicationchannels such as email, short message service (SMS) message, web page,application interface, or the like electronically generated for thepurpose of attempting to sell or raise awareness of a product, service,promotion, or merchant to the consumer.

It should be appreciated that the term “electronic marketingcommunication” implies and requires some portion of the content of thecommunication to be generated via an electronic process. For example, atelephone call made from an employee of the PA service to a consumer forthe purpose of selling a product or service would not qualify as anelectronic marketing communication, even if the identity of the callrecipient was selected by an electronic process and the call was dialedelectronically, as the content of the telephone call is not generated inan electronic manner. However, a so-called “robo-call” with contentprogrammatically selected, generated, or recorded via an electronicprocess and initiated by an electronic system to notify a consumer of aparticular product, service, or promotion would qualify as an electronicmarketing communication. Similarly, a manually drafted e-mail sent froman employee of the PA service to a consumer for the purpose of marketinga product would not qualify as an electronic marketing communication.However, a programmatically generated email including marketingmaterials programmatically selected based on electronic marketinginformation associated with the recipient would qualify as an electronicmarketing communication.

As used herein, the term “business analytic data” refers to datagenerated by the PA service based on electronic marketing information toassist with the operation of the PA service and/or one or more merchantsystems. The various streams of electronic marketing informationprovided to and by the PA service allow for the use of sophisticateddata analysis techniques that may be employed to identify correlations,relationships, and other associations among elements of electronicmarketing information. These associations may be processed and formattedby the PA service to provide reports, recommendations, and services bothinternal to the PA service and to merchants in order to improve theprocess by which merchants and PA service engage with consumers.

For example, the PA service may analyze the electronic marketinginformation to generate customized menu interfaces that facilitateconsumer service. For example, based on the electronic marketinginformation, the PA service may generate menus that are relevant toreal-time preferences, conditions or habits of the consumer.Furthermore, the PA service may identify an increased demand for aparticular product or service, and provide an electronic report to amerchant suggesting the merchant offer the particular product orservice, or update the menu interface to include, recommend, orotherwise present the particular product or service. In another example,the PA service may identify that a particular product or service is notselling or resulting in the merchant losing money, customers, or marketshare (e.g., after consumers order a particular menu item, they nevercome back to the merchant), and suggest that the merchant shoulddiscontinue offering that product or service or remove the product orservice from the menu interface.

It should be appreciated that the term “business analytic data” isintended to refer to electronically and programmatically generated data.For example, a printed report or letter manually drafted by an employeeof the service would not be said to include business analytic data, evenif said data was used by the employee during the drafting process, whilea data disk or downloaded file containing analytics generated by the PAservice would be considered business analytic data. Human interactionrequires time, resources, introduces errors, and is incapable ofefficiently considering large data collections, and thus variousembodiments discussed herein include solutions to some or all of thesetechnical problems.

As used herein, a “digital consumer token” refers to a key, code,identifier, or the like, that uniquely identifies a consumer deviceand/or consumer account record. For example, consumer profiles and/orconsumer information of a consumer account record may be associated witha digital consumer token. The digital consumer token may be passed fromconsumer devices to merchant devices, and used by the merchant devicesto access consumer information associated with the digital consumertoken (e.g., via an exchange with the PA service).

As used herein, a “consumer account record” refers to a record ofconsumer information stored in one or more consumer account databases ofthe PA service. The consumer account record may be associated with oneor more consumer profiles and each consumer profile may includeassociated consumer information and/or sharing rules that define whichmerchants or entities can receive the consumer information. In someembodiments, a consumer account record may be stored in a memory of aconsumer device.

As used herein, a “consumer profile” refers to an organized collectionor bundle of consumer information. A consumer profile may includeconsumer information such as interests, preferences, etc., which may beused to facilitate consumer interactions, generate customizedpoint-of-sale interfaces, etc. A consumer profile may further beassociated with or include sharing rules to allow for fine consumercontrol the dissemination of the consumer information.

As used herein, a “public consumer profile” refers to a consumerprofile, a digital consumer bio, or other bundle of consumer informationthat is defined as being shared with merchant devices without requiringan express consumer input or authorization for each instance of sharingwith merchant devices. Furthermore, the public consumer profile may beshared freely with merchant devices and/or other devices.

As used herein, a “private consumer profile” refers to a bundle ofconsumer information defined as being shared only express consumer inputor authorization for each instance of sharing with merchant devices. Thepublic consumer profile may only be shared with merchant devices thatare pre-approved or otherwise trusted by the consumer. In someembodiments, a private consume profile may be associated with sensitiveconsumer information, such as payment data, health data,consumer-defined private data, etc.

Technical Underpinnings and Implementation of Exemplary Embodiments

Merchants, including manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, havespent a tremendous amount of time, money, manpower, and other resourcesto determine the best way to serve products and services to consumers.Whether a given consumer interaction is successful (at least from themerchant’s perspective) is often determined based on thereturn-on-investment received to the merchant in terms of revenues,profits, and increased awareness of the merchant’s goods and serviceswhen compared to the resources invested by the merchant to facilitatethe consumer interaction. In other words, optimal point-of-saletechniques generally maximize the benefit to the merchant’s bottom linewhile minimizing the cost spent (e.g., in terms of processing, memory,and/or networking resources) on facilitating the consumer interaction.To this end, a merchant’s resources may be spent in a variety ofdifferent manners including conducting market and consumer research,identifying consumers, tracking consumer preferences, purchases,behaviors, or habits, training employees, offering targeted products orservices, advertising, offering of discounts, conducting marketresearch, among other things. The end goal of these activities is toensure that consumer information is programmatically leveraged duringconsumer and merchant interactions, thus improving the efficiency of theinteractions in terms of processing and memory resources, as well as thenetwork throughput of associated data.

The advent of electronic commerce has revolutionized the marketingprocess. While merchants would typically have to perform costly marketresearch such as focus groups, surveys, and the like to obtain detailedinformation on consumer preferences and demographics, the digital agehas provided a wealth of new consumer information that may be used tooptimize the point-of-sale process. As a result, new technologies havebeen developed to gather, aggregate, analyze, and report informationfrom a variety of electronic sources.

So-called “clickstream data” provides a robust set of informationdescribing the various interactions consumers have with electronicmarketing information provided to them by merchants and others. The PAservice may be developed with sophisticated technologies that areconfigured to receive and process this data for the benefit of bothmerchants and consumers. The PA service may assist merchants withmarketing or otherwise presenting their products to interestedconsumers, while reducing the chance that a consumer will be presentedwith marketing or menu information in which the consumer has nointerest. The PA service may further leverage its access to the trove ofelectronic marketing information to assist merchants and consumers withother tasks, such as offering improved consumer profile and informationmanagement, improved merchant inventory and supply chain management,improved point-of-sale interfaces and menu displays, improved methodsfor delivering products and services, and the like.

Unlike conventional techniques related to the use of paper or otherphysical media (e.g., paper menus), the PA service may offer a wealth ofadditional electronic solutions to improve the experience for consumersand merchants. The ability to closely monitor consumer interactions(e.g., with impressions, purchases at other merchants, location dataindicating consumer location, etc.) provides the ability for the PAservice to gather data related to the time, place, and manner in whichthe consumer engaged with the electronic data (e.g., viewed, clicked,moused-over an impression and obtained and redeemed the promotion). ThePA service may use this information to determine which products andservices are most relevant to the consumer’s interest, and to providemarketing materials related to said products and services to theconsumer, thus improving the quality of the electronic marketingcommunications received by the consumer. The PA service may additionallyor alternatively use this information to generate POS interfaces andmenu displays that are targeted to the consumer, thus improving thequality a consumer’s experience at a merchant shop.

Merchants may be provided with the ability to dynamically monitor andadjust the parameters of items, menu data, or promotions offered by thePA service, ensuring that the merchant receives a positive return ontheir investment. For example, the merchant can closely monitor thetype, price or discount level, and quantity sold of a particular item(or promotion) on the fly, while with traditional printed menus themerchant would not be able to make any changes to after the menu hasgone to print. Each of these advancements in digital point-of-saleinvolve problems unique to the digital environment not before seen intraditional point-of-sale activity.

Although electronic marketing information provides a wealth ofinformation, the inventors have determined that existing techniques maynot always leverage or process this information in an efficient oraccurate manner. Technology continues to rapidly advance in the field ofanalytics and the processing of this information, offering improved datagathering and analysis techniques, resulting in more relevant andaccurate results provided in a more efficient manner. Point-of-saleservices continue to evolve and provide improved methods for engagingconsumers and spreading awareness of products offered by thepoint-of-sale services.

In many cases, the inventors have determined that these services areconstrained by technological obstacles unique to the electronic natureof the services provided, such as constraints on data storage, machinecommunication, interoperability, and processor resources. The inventorshave identified that the wealth of electronic data available to theseservices and the robust nature of point-of-sale techniques present newdata, network, and communication challenges never contemplated in theworld of paper menus and physical marketing techniques (e.g., papercoupons). The inventors have further determined that even technologicalmethods that leverage computers for statistical analysis and consumerbehavior modeling (e.g., television rating systems) fail to addressproblems associated with providing relevant, high quality point-of-saleinterfaces in a manner that maximizes accuracy, minimizes error, is userfriendly and provides for efficient allocation of resources. Embodimentsof the present invention as described herein serve to correct thesedeficiencies and offer improved resource utilization, thus providingimprovements to electronic point-of-sale services that address problemsarising out of the electronic nature of those services. For example,various embodiments may provide for accurate electronic authenticationof consumers with little or no direct consumer action, accurate captureof item level data associated with transactions, accurate item orpromotion targeting based on merchant and consumer information, sharingof consumer account data between merchants, among other things.

System Architecture and Example Apparatus

Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products of the presentinvention may be embodied by any of a variety of devices. For example,the method, apparatus, and computer program product of an exampleembodiment may be embodied by a networked device, such as a server orother network entity, configured to communicate with one or moredevices, such as one or more client devices. Additionally oralternatively, the computing device may include fixed computing devices,such as a personal computer or a computer workstation. Still further,example embodiments may be embodied by any of a variety of mobileterminals, such as a portable digital assistant (PDA), mobile telephone,smartphone, laptop computer, tablet computer, or any combination of theaforementioned devices.

In this regard, FIG. 1 shows an example computing system 100 withinwhich embodiments of the present invention may operate. Merchants mayaccess a PA service 102 via a network 112 (e.g., the Internet, or thelike) using computer devices 108A through 108N and 110A through 110N,respectively (e.g., one or more consumer devices 108A-108N or one ormore merchant devices 110A-110N). Moreover, the PA service 102 maycomprise a server 104 in communication with a database 106.

The server 104 may be embodied as a computer or computers as known inthe art. The server 104 may provide for receiving of electronic datafrom various sources, including but not necessarily limited to theconsumer devices 108A-108N and the merchant devices 110A-110N. Forexample, the server 104 may be operable to receive and processelectronic marketing information provided by the consumer devices 108and/or the merchant devices 110. The server 104 may also facilitatee-commerce transactions based on transaction information provided by theconsumer devices 108 and/or the merchant devices 110. The server 104 mayfacilitate the generation and providing of various point-of-saleinterfaces and menu displays, or electronic communications and marketingmaterials based on the received electronic data.

The database 106 may be embodied as a data storage device such as aNetwork Attached Storage (NAS) device or devices, or as a separatedatabase server or servers. The database 106 includes informationaccessed and stored by the server 104 to facilitate the operations ofthe PA service 102. For example, the database 106 may include, withoutlimitation, consumer account credentials for system administrators, oneor more consumer profiles and related data (e.g., consumer preferences,information sharing rules, etc.), associations between consumer profilesand consumer identifying tokens, merchants, and consumers, dataindicating the products and promotions offered by the PA service, menuitem data, inventory data, employee information (e.g., skills,specializations, organizational role, shift or payroll data, backgroundor employee profile information, etc.) clickstream data, transactiondata, discretionary data, analytic results, reports, financial data,and/or the like.

The consumer devices 108A-108N may be any computing device as known inthe art and operated by a consumer. Electronic data received by theserver 104 from the consumer devices 108A-108N may be provided invarious forms and via various methods. For example, the consumer devices108A-108N may include desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones,netbooks, tablet computers, wearables (e.g., Google Glass®, Android®Wear watches, etc.), and the like. The information may be providedthrough various sources on these consumer devices.

In embodiments where a consumer device 108 is a mobile device, such as asmart phone or tablet, the consumer device 108 may execute a mobiledevice application (an “app” or “mobile app”) to interact with the PAservice 102. Such apps are typically designed to execute on mobiledevices, such as tablets or smartphones. For example, a mobile softwareapplication or “app” may be provided that executes on mobile deviceoperating systems such as Apple Inc.’s iOS®, Google Inc.’s Android®, orMicrosoft Inc.’s Windows 8®. These platforms typically provide operatingsystem frameworks that allow apps to communicate with one another andwith particular hardware and software components of mobile devices. Forexample, the mobile operating systems named above each provideframeworks for interacting with location services circuitry, wired andwireless network interfaces, user contacts, and other applications in amanner that allows for improved interactions between apps while alsopreserving the privacy and security of consumers. In some embodiments, amobile operating system may also provide for improved communicationinterfaces for interacting with external devices (e.g., home automationsystems, indoor navigation systems, and the like). Communication withhardware and software modules executing outside of the app is typicallyprovided via application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by themobile device operating system.

The PA service 102 may leverage the application framework offered by themobile operating system to allow consumers to designate whichinformation is provided to the app and which information may then beprovided to the PA service 102. In some embodiments, consumers may “optin” to provide particular data to the PA service 102 in exchange for abenefit, such as improved relevancy of marketing communications offeredto the user. In some embodiments, the consumer may be provided withprivacy information and other terms and conditions related to theinformation provided to the PA service 102 during installation or use ofthe app. Once the consumer provides access to a particular feature ofthe mobile device, information derived from that feature may be providedto the PA service 102 to improve the quality of the consumer’sinteractions with the PA service and merchant devices.

For example, the consumer may indicate that they wish to providelocation information to the app from location services circuitryincluded in their mobile device. Providing this information to the PAservice 102 may enable the PA service 102 to offer promotions to theconsumer that are relevant to the particular location of the consumer(e.g., by providing promotions for merchants proximate to the consumer’scurrent location). It should be appreciated that the various mobiledevice operating systems may provide the ability to regulate theinformation provided to the app associated with the PA service 102. Forexample, the consumer may decide at a later point to disable the abilityof the app to access the location services circuitry, thus limiting theaccess of the consumer’s location information to the PA service 102.

Various other types of information may also be provided in conjunctionwith an app executing on the consumer’s mobile device. For example, ifthe mobile device includes a social networking feature, the consumer mayenable the app to provide updates to the consumer’s social network tonotify friends of a particularly interesting promotion, or leveragesocial networking data to generate or update consumer information (e.g.,one or more consumer profiles). It should be appreciated that the use ofmobile technology and associated app may provide for particularly uniqueand beneficial uses of the PA service through leveraging thefunctionality offered by the various mobile operating systems.

Additionally or alternatively, the consumer device 108 may interactthrough the PA service 102 via a web browser. As yet another example,the consumer device 108 may include various hardware or firmwaredesigned to interface with the PA service 102 (e.g., where the consumerdevice 108 is a purpose-built device offered for the primary purpose ofcommunicating with the PA service 102, such as a store kiosk).

The merchant devices 110A-110N may be any computing device as known inthe art and operated by a merchant. For example, the merchant devices110A-110N may include a merchant point-of-sale device, a merchante-commerce server, a merchant inventory system, or a computing deviceaccessing a web site or app designed and configured to providepoint-of-sale functionality (e.g., by accessing a PA service server 104through an app or a web page via a browser using a set of merchantaccount credentials). Electronic data received by the PA service 102from the merchant devices 110A-110N may also be provided in variousforms and via various methods. For example, the merchant devices110A-110N may provide menu data or menu item data (e.g., items offered,ingredients, price, etc.), or real-time transaction and/or inventoryinformation as purchases are made from the merchant. In otherembodiments, the merchant devices 110A-110N may be employed to provideinformation to the PA service 102 to enable the PA service 102 togenerate promotions or other marketing information to be provided toconsumers.

An example of a data flow for exchanging electronic information amongone or more consumer devices, merchant devices, and the PA service isdescribed below with respect to FIG. 3 .

Example Apparatus[es] for Implementing Embodiments of the PresentInvention

The server 104 may be embodied by one or more computing systems, such asapparatus 200 shown in FIG. 2 . As illustrated in FIG. 2 , the apparatus200 may include a processor 202, a memory 204, input/output circuitry206, communications circuitry 208, consumer profile service circuitry210, data collection circuitry 212, point-of-sale service circuitry 214,and kitchen service circuitry 216. The apparatus 200 may be configuredto execute the operations described above with respect to FIG. 1 andbelow with respect to FIGS. 6-10 . Although these components 202-216 aredescribed with respect to functional limitations, it should beunderstood that the particular implementations necessarily include theuse of particular hardware. It should also be understood that certain ofthese components 202-216 may include similar or common hardware. Forexample, two sets of circuitry may both leverage use of the sameprocessor, network interface, storage medium, or the like to performtheir associated functions, such that duplicate hardware is not requiredfor each set of circuitry. The use of the term “circuitry” as usedherein with respect to components of the apparatus should therefore beunderstood to include particular hardware configured to perform thefunctions associated with the particular circuitry as described herein.

The term “circuitry” should be understood broadly to include hardwareand, in some embodiments, software for configuring the hardware. Forexample, in some embodiments, “circuitry” may include processingcircuitry, storage media, network interfaces, input/output devices, andthe like. In some embodiments, other elements of the apparatus 200 mayprovide or supplement the functionality of particular circuitry. Forexample, the processor 202 may provide processing functionality, thememory 204 may provide storage functionality, the communicationscircuitry 208 may provide network interface functionality, and the like.

In some embodiments, the processor 202 (and/or co-processor or any otherprocessing circuitry assisting or otherwise associated with theprocessor) may be in communication with the memory 204 via a bus forpassing information among components of the apparatus. The memory 204may be non-transitory and may include, for example, one or more volatileand/or non-volatile memories. In other words, for example, the memorymay be an electronic storage device (e.g., a computer readable storagemedium). The memory 204 may be configured to store information, data,content, applications, instructions, or the like, for enabling theapparatus to carry out various functions in accordance with exampleembodiments of the present invention.

The processor 202 may be embodied in a number of different ways and may,for example, include one or more processing devices configured toperform independently. Additionally or alternatively, the processor mayinclude one or more processors configured in tandem via a bus to enableindependent execution of instructions, pipelining, and/ormultithreading. The use of the term “processing circuitry” may beunderstood to include a single core processor, a multi-core processor,multiple processors internal to the apparatus, and/or remote or “cloud”processors.

In an example embodiment, the processor 202 may be configured to executeinstructions stored in the memory 204 or otherwise accessible to theprocessor. Alternatively or additionally, the processor may beconfigured to execute hard-coded functionality. As such, whetherconfigured by hardware or software methods, or by a combination thereof,the processor may represent an entity (e.g., physically embodied incircuitry) capable of performing operations according to an embodimentof the present invention while configured accordingly. Alternatively, asanother example, when the processor is embodied as an executor ofsoftware instructions, the instructions may specifically configure theprocessor to perform the algorithms and/or operations described hereinwhen the instructions are executed.

In some embodiments, the apparatus 200 may include input/outputcircuitry 206 that may, in turn, be in communication with processor 202to provide output to the user and, in some embodiments, to receive anindication of a user input. The input/output circuitry 206 may comprisea user interface and may include a display and may comprise a web userinterface, a mobile application, a client device, a kiosk, or the like.In some embodiments, the input/output circuitry 206 may also include akeyboard, a mouse, a joystick, a touch screen, touch areas, soft keys, amicrophone, a speaker, biometric reader (e.g., fingerprint and/or retinascanner), or other input/output mechanisms. The processor and/or userinterface circuitry comprising the processor may be configured tocontrol one or more functions of one or more user interface elementsthrough computer program instructions (e.g., software and/or firmware)stored on a memory accessible to the processor (e.g., memory 204, and/orthe like).

The communications circuitry 208 may be any means such as a device orcircuitry embodied in either hardware or a combination of hardware andsoftware that is configured to receive and/or transmit data from/to anetwork and/or any other device, circuitry, or module in communicationwith the apparatus 200. In this regard, the communications circuitry 208may include, for example, a network interface for enablingcommunications with a wired or wireless communication network. Forexample, the communications circuitry 208 may include one or morenetwork interface cards, antennae, buses, switches, routers, modems, andsupporting hardware and/or software, or any other device suitable forenabling communications via a network. Additionally or alternatively,the communication interface may include the circuitry for interactingwith the antenna(s) to cause transmission of signals via the antenna(s)or to handle receipt of signals received via the antenna(s).

Consumer profile service circuitry 210 may include hardware configuredto generate digital consumer tokens, provide the digital consumer tokensto consumer devices 108A-108N, manage consumer information (e.g.,consumer records, consumer profiles, etc.) associated with digitalconsumer tokens, and provide the consumer information to merchantdevices 110A-110N in response to receiving digital consumer tokens fromthe merchant devices. In some embodiments, consumer profile servicecircuitry 210 may be configured to provide a consumer interface toconsumer devices to facilitate consumer profile management. Datacollection circuitry 212 may include hardware configured to collectelectronic marketing information (e.g., discretionary data, clickstreamdata, transaction data; consumer location data; real-time consumerdevice signals, etc.), which may be used by data collection circuitry212 and/or consumer profile service circuitry 210 to generate, update,and/or otherwise manage the consumer information associated with adigital consumer token. Point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may includehardware configured to provide point-of-sale interfaces to merchantdevice. For example, a point-of-sale interface for a restaurant merchantmay include a menu display including selectable menu items.Point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may provide customized point-of-saleinterfaces based on receiving a digital consumer token, and using theconsumer data (e.g., a consumer record, consumer profile, etc.)associated with the received digital consumer token. Kitchen servicecircuitry may be configured to facilitate menu item preparation, such asby providing menu item data (e.g., indicating ingredients and/or amountsof the ingredients of a menu item) to a kitchen display and/or bymonitoring menu item preparation to programmatically generate the menuitem data indicating ingredients of the menu item and/or inventory dataindicating available ingredients.

Circuitry 210-216 may utilize processing circuitry, such as theprocessor 202, to perform these actions. However, it should also beappreciated that, in some embodiments, one or more of circuitries210-216 may include a separate processor, specially configured fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), or application specific interfacecircuit (ASIC). Circuitry 210-216 may therefore be implemented usinghardware components of the apparatus configured by either hardware orsoftware for implementing these planned functions.

As will be appreciated, any such computer program instructions and/orother type of code may be loaded onto a computer, processor or otherprogrammable apparatus’s circuitry to produce a machine, such that thecomputer, processor other programmable circuitry that execute the codeon the machine create the means for implementing various functions,including those described herein.

It is also noted that all or some of the information presented by theexample displays discussed herein can be based on data that is received,generated and/or maintained by one or more components of apparatus 200.In some embodiments, one or more external systems (such as a remotecloud computing and/or data storage system) may also be leveraged toprovide at least some of the functionality discussed herein.

As described above and as will be appreciated based on this disclosure,embodiments of the present invention may be configured as methods,mobile devices, backend network devices, and the like. Accordingly,embodiments may comprise various means including entirely of hardware orany combination of software and hardware. Furthermore, embodiments maytake the form of a computer program product on at least onenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readableprogram instructions (e.g., computer software) embodied in the storagemedium. Any suitable computer-readable storage medium may be utilizedincluding non-transitory hard disks, CD-ROMs, flash memory, opticalstorage devices, or magnetic storage devices.

Consumer device(s) 108 may be embodied by one or more computing systems,such as apparatus 400 shown in FIG. 4 . The depicted apparatus 400includes processor 402, memory 404, input/output circuitry 406,communications circuitry 408, consumer profile management circuitry 410,sensor circuitry 412, and location services circuitry 414. The apparatus400 may be configured to execute the operations described below withrespect to FIGS. 1 and 6-8 . The functioning of the processor 402, thememory 404, the input/output circuitry 406, and the communicationcircuitry 408 may be similar to the similarly named components describedabove with respect to FIG. 2 . For the sake of brevity, additionaldescription of these components is omitted.

Consumer profile management circuitry 410 may include hardwareconfigured to create and manage consumer profiles and/or other consumerdata, such as based in consumer inputs provided via input/outputcircuitry 406. The consumer information may be associated with a digitalconsumer token that can be exchanged between consumer and merchantdevices as discussed herein to share various portions of the informationmanaged by consumer profile management circuitry 410. In someembodiments, consumer profile management circuitry 410 may be configuredto perform some or all of the techniques discussed herein with respectto consumer profile service circuitry 210.

Sensor circuitry 412 may be configured to generate real-time consumerdevice signals that may be used as electronic marketing data tocustomize the point-of-sale interfaces, update or create consumerprofiles, and/or otherwise be provided to merchant devices to facilitateconsumer-merchant interactions. For example, sensor circuitry 412 mayinclude environmental sensors (e.g., temperature, humidity, etc.),biological sensors (e.g., thermometer, visual sensors (e.g., a frontfacing camera configured to capture consumer expressions and/orgestures), and/or motion sensors (e.g., accelerometers, gyroscopes,etc.).

Location services circuitry 414 may be configured to generate consumerdevice location data indicating the location of a consumer device andprovide the consumer device location data to server 104. For example,location services circuitry 414 may use cell-tower triangulation, globalpositioning systems (GPS), internet protocol (IP) address, and/or anyother suitable technique to determine the consumer device location data.

Merchant device(s) 110 may be embodied by one or more computing systems,such as apparatus 500 shown in FIG. 5 . The depicted apparatus 500,which is configured for use in a restaurant, includes processor 502,memory 504, input/output circuitry 506, communications circuitry 508,point-of-sale circuitry 510, token interface circuitry 512, menumanagement circuitry 514, and kitchen circuitry 516. The functioning ofthe processor 502, the memory 504, the input/output circuitry 506, andthe communication circuitry 508 may be similar to the similarly namedcomponents described above with respect to FIG. 2 . For the sake ofbrevity, additional description of these components is omitted.

Point-of-sale circuitry 510 may include hardware configured to providethe point-of-sale interface on the merchant device. In some embodiments,point-of-sale circuitry 510 may communicate with point-of-sale servicecircuitry 214 of server 104. In some embodiments, point-of-salecircuitry 510 may be configured to perform some or all of the techniquesdiscussed herein with respect to point-of-sale service circuitry 214.Token interface circuitry 512 may include hardware configured to receivedigital consumer tokens, and may be further configured to exchange thedigital consumer tokens for associated consumer data and/orpoint-of-sale interfaces generated based on the consumer data (e.g.,among other things).

Menu management circuitry 514 may include hardware configured tofacilitate menu creation and inventory management. For example, menumanagement circuitry 514 may be configured to generate menu item data,inventory data, etc., and to provide the generated data to point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 of server 104. In some embodiments, menu andinventory management circuitry 510 may be configured to perform some orall of the techniques discussed herein with respect to point-of-saleservice circuitry 214.

Kitchen circuitry 516 may be configured to perform menu item attributediscovery and may include various sensors that monitor menu itempreparation to programmatically discover ingredients, ingredientamounts, preparation processes, and/or inventory management, asdiscussed in further detail below.

Example Prescient and Adaptive Point-of-Sale Service Data Flow

FIG. 3 depicts an example data flow 300 illustrating interactionsbetween a server 302, one or more consumer devices 304, and one or moremerchant devices 306. The server 302 may be implemented in the same or asimilar fashion as the server 104 as described above with respect toFIG. 1 , the one or more consumer devices 304 may be implemented in thesame or a similar fashion as the consumer devices 108A-108N as describedabove with respect to FIG. 1 , and the one or more merchant devices 306may be implemented in the same or a similar fashion as the merchantdevices 110A-110N as described above with respect to FIG. 1 .

The data flow 300 illustrates how electronic information may be passedamong various systems when employing a server 302 in accordance withembodiments of the present invention. The one or more consumer devices304 and/or one or more merchant devices 306 may provide a variety ofelectronic marketing information to the server 302 for use in providingthe PA service to the consumer. This electronic marketing informationmay include, but is not limited to, location data, clickstream data,transaction data, communication channel data, and/or discretionary data.

In some embodiments, in response to receiving electronic marketinginformation from a consumer device 304, the server 302 may be configuredto generate one or more consumer profiles. A consumer profile mayinclude a bundle of consumer information and may include merchantsharing rules for the consumer information. For example, a consumer maycreate a “foodie” profile, associate favorite menu items with the foodieprofile, associate disfavored items or ingredients (e.g., allergies),associate dine-in or seating preferences, etc.

In some embodiments, server 302 may generate a digital consumer tokenassociated with one or more consumer profiles and provide the digitalconsumer token to consumer device 304. When consumer device 304 sharesthe digital consumer token with merchant device 306, which merchantdevice 306 may pass the digital consumer token to server 304. Inresponse, server 304 may return a point-of-sale interface configured tofacilitate consumer interactions based on the consumer informationassociated with the consumer profile. In another example, server 304 mayprovide consumer profile information and/or business analytic datarelevant to the consumer to merchant device 306 based on receiving thedigital consumer token identifying the consumer account or profile(s).In that sense, the PA service may allow a consumer carrying consumerdevice 304 to enter a merchant shop (e.g., with consumer device 304being configured to broadcast a digital consumer token) to receivepersonalized, customized or targeted service without requiringadditional consumer interactions with consumer device 304, the merchant,or merchant device 306 that may interrupt, inconvenience or otherwisecomplicate the real-time consumer merchant interaction.

In some embodiments, as a result of transactions performed between theone or more consumer devices 304 and the server 302, the server 302 mayprovide fulfillment data to the consumer devices. The fulfillment datamay include information indicating whether the transaction wassuccessful, the location and time the product will be provided to theconsumer, instruments for redeeming promotions purchased by theconsumer, or the like.

In addition to the e-commerce interactions with the one or more consumerdevices 304 offered by the server 302, the server 302 may leverageinformation provided by the consumer devices to improve the relevancy ofmenu displays or marketing communications to individual consumers orgroups of consumers. In this manner, the server 302 may determinepromotions, goods, and services that are more likely to be of interestto a particular consumer or group of consumers based on clickstreamdata, discretionary data, transaction data, location data, and otherinformation provided by and/or relating to particular consumers. Forexample, the server 302 may detect the location of a consumer based onlocation data provided by the consumer device, and offer promotionsbased on the proximity of the consumer to the merchant associated withthose promotions.

Alternatively, the server 302 may note that the consumer has an interestin a particular hobby (e.g., skiing) based on electronic marketinginformation associated with the consumer (e.g., profile information,discretionary data provided by the consumer, clickstream data such as abrowser cookie that indicates they frequently visit websites thatprovide snowfall forecasts for particular ski resorts), priortransaction data, and offer promotions or items associated with thathobby (e.g., a promotion offering discounted ski equipment rentals orlift tickets). It should be appreciated that a variety of differenttypes of electronic marketing information could be provided to theserver 302 for the purpose of improving the relevancy of point-of-saleinterfaces and/or marketing communications. It should also beappreciated that this electronic marketing information may be receivedfrom a variety of electronic sources, including various consumerdevices, merchant devices, and other sources both internal and externalto a PA service. For example, other data sources may include importedcontact databases maintained by merchants, electronic survey questionsanswered by consumers, and/or various other forms of electronic data.

It should also be appreciated that the server 302 may also control otherfactors of the electronic marketing communications sent to the consumerother than the particular promotions included in the electronicmarketing communication. For example, the server 302 may determine theform, structure, frequency, and type of the electronic marketingcommunication. As with the content of the electronic marketingcommunication, these factors may be programmatically determinedaccording to various methods, factors, and processes based on electronicdata received by the server 302 for the purpose of maximize thelikelihood that the communication will be relevant to the recipientconsumer.

The server 302 interactions with the one or more merchant devices 306may be related to enabling the merchant to provide point-of-sale relatedservices to consumers using the PA service. For example, the one or moremerchant devices 306 may provide product data, menu item data, inventorydata, and/or employee data to server 302. The sever 302 may receive thisinformation and generate menu displays or point-of-sale interfaces thatmay be provided to merchant devices 306 Additionally or alternatively,point-of-sale interfaces and menu displays may be provided to consumerdevices 304, such as for online ordering or consumer self-service.

In some embodiments, merchants may market their products using a PAservice. For example, the one or more merchant devices 306 may providepromotion data defining one or more promotions to be offered by the PAservice on behalf of the merchant. The server 302 may receive thepromotion data and generate electronic marketing communications forproviding such promotions via an e-commerce interface, making thepromotions available for purchase by consumers. The server 302 may alsoreceive product/inventory data about products from the one or moremerchant devices 306. For example, a merchant may product/inventory dataindicating particular products, product prices, inventory levels, andthe like to be marketed via a PA service. The server 302 may receivethis information and generate electronic marketing communications tooffer the products to consumers.

The one or more merchant devices 306 may also receive information fromthe server 302. For example, in some embodiments a merchant may obtainaccess to certain consumer information and/or business analytic dataaggregated, generated, or maintained by the server 302. As a particularexample, a merchant’s menu or point-of-sale interface may be customizedbased on the consumer information such as for ranking or ordering menuitems within the point-of-sale interface, removing menu items includingdisfavored ingredients, etc.

Consumer Profile Management and Authentication

Some embodiments may provide for the establishment and management ofconsumer profiles than may be shared with or otherwise used by merchantdevices to facilitate consumer and merchant interactions. For example, aconsumer via consumer interface provided on a consumer device may definea consumer profile including consumer information such as interests,hobbies, age, gender, location, etc. The consumer may also be allowed tospecify privacy settings or otherwise control the dissemination ofconsumer information. For example, the consumer may define sharing rulesfor a consumer profile (and/or the associated consumer information) thatspecify which merchants or merchant types can receive a consumer profileand/or a particular portion of consumer information.

In some embodiments, the consumer profiles may be managed by theconsumer and stored on the consumer device. In another example, service102 may provide for the management of the consumer profiles. Forexample, service 102 may receive discretionary data defining a consumerprofile from a consumer device, generate and/or update the consumerprofile based on the discretionary data, etc.

When a consumer walks into merchant locations carrying the consumerdevice, the consumer device may be configured to share a digitalconsumer token associated with the consumer profile with merchantdevices. The merchant devices may then exchange the digital consumertoken with service 102 to receive the consumer profile and/or consumerinformation. In another example, the consumer device may be configuredto provide the consumer profile and/or consumer information to themerchant device (e.g., with or without a digital consumer token.

The applicable consumer profile and/or consumer information beautomatically (e.g., without additional consumer device inputs) providedto merchant devices in accordance with the sharing rules. As such,(e.g., various different) merchants are able to identify the consumerand also receive relevant consumer information in a manner that appearsseamless or prescient to the consumer. For example, a restaurantmerchant may receive consumer information identifying allergies of theconsumer and this consumer information may be leveraged to provideconsumer service, such as for providing recommendations for a menu itemor modifications to a menu item. Furthermore, in some embodiments,point-of-sale interfaces of the merchant devices may be generated basedon the consumer profile and/or consumer information, such aspoint-of-sale interfaces having customized menus or other features. Inthat sense, the point-of-sale interface may be adaptive consumerprofiles and/or consumer information.

In addition to discretionary data provided by the consumer device,consumer profiles may be updated by service 102 based on trackingconsumer activity by merchant devices, consumer devices, and/or merchantnetworks (e.g., crowd-sourcing). For example, service 102 may aggregateand/or otherwise analyze transaction data of the consumer generate atvarious merchant locations to update a consumer profile with an interestor preference.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 600 of generating oneor more consumer profiles. Method 600, as well as the other methodsdiscussed herein, is described as being performed by one or more of thecomponents of computing system 100. In some embodiments, method 600 maybe performed by one or more suitably configured servers, apparatuses,storage devices, routers, network switches, etc.

Method 600 may begin at 602 and proceed to 604, where consumer profileservice circuitry 210 of one or more servers 104 may be configured togenerate a digital consumer token. The digital consumer token may be atype of data that is used by consumer devices to share consumerinformation with merchant devices. In some embodiments, digital consumertoken may be a key, code, identifier, or the like, that uniquelyidentifies a consumer device and/or consumer account record. Withreference to FIG. 1 , for example, each consumer device 108A-108N may beassociated with a different digital consumer token.

In some embodiments, the digital consumer token may be generated basedon a random (i.e., pseudo random number generated) code that isindependent of consumer identifying data (e.g., consumer name, contactinformation, payment information, etc.) and/or other consumer dataassociated with the consumer account record (e.g., electronic marketinginformation such as discretionary data, clickstream data, etc.). Thedigital consumer token may be an arbitrary unique ID or otherwise notreveal any sensitive consumer information when received by anunauthorized device. In some embodiments, the digital consumer token mayinclude an internet protocol (IP) address, MAC address, and/or otherunique consumer device identifier.

In some embodiments, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may beconfigured to generate the digital consumer token in response toreceiving a request from consumer profile management circuitry 410 ofconsumer device 108. For example, the request may be provided vianetwork 12 and in connection with login data (e.g., username andpassword, a biometric identifier, etc.) for access to the consumeraccount record. In some embodiments, the digital consumer token may begenerated by the consumer device, such as by consumer profile managementcircuitry 410. In some embodiments, the consumer device may beconfigured to generate the digital consumer token, as well as performsome or all of the other steps of method 600.

At 606, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toassociate the digital consumer token with a consumer account record of aconsumer database. The consumer account record may be one or multipleconsumer account records stored in the consumer database (e.g., database106), each of which may be associated with a different digital consumertoken. In some embodiments, such as where method 600 is performed by theconsumer device, the digital consumer token may be generated by consumerprofile management circuitry 410 of the consumer device.

At 608, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toprovide the digital consumer token to the consumer device associatedwith the consumer account record. For example, consumer profile servicecircuitry 210 may provide the digital consumer token to the consumerdevice via network 112.

At 610, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toreceive discretionary data from the consumer device. The discretionarydata may be received via network 112 and may include electronicmarketing information provided by the consumer, such as during aregistration, profile creation, profile management, or otherfunctionality. The discretionary data may indicate consumer interests,hobbies, age, gender, group membership, location, among other thingsthat may be used in providing seamless consumer-merchant interactionsfor a variety of different merchants and/or merchant types (e.g., retailshops, dine-in restaurants, hotels, etc.).

At 612, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured togenerate one or more consumer profiles based on the discretionary data.A consumer profile, as used herein, refers to an organized collection orbundle of consumer information. Different consumer profiles may beassociated with different aspects, personalities, or dimensions of aconsumer. In some embodiments, the discretionary data received from theconsumer device may define multiple consumer profiles, as well as theconsumer information associated with the consumer profiles. In someembodiments, a single consumer profile may be used for each consumer orconsumer account record. Here, the discretionary data may define sharingrules for portions of the discretionary data.

When a consumer account record is associated with a plurality ofconsumer profiles, different consumer profile may be applicable todifferent personas or roles of the consumer, and/or may be used withdifferent merchants, merchant types, or verticals based on the items(e.g., products, services, or experiences) offered by the merchant toconsumers. An example of a consumer profile may include a “foodie”profile, which may be used to generate point-of-sale interfaces that aretailored to the associated preferences of the foodie profile (e.g.,favorite menu items, favorite categories of restaurant and/or food,undesirable ingredients, allergic ingredients, favorite drinks,preferred price ranges, etc.) and/or otherwise provided to merchantdevices associated with restaurant merchants (e.g., as an informationaldisplay). Another example may include a “clothing shopper” profile usedwith retail merchants, which may include apparel preferences, brandpreferences, apparel size preferences, etc.

As discussed above, the consumer may define sharing rules that specifythe portions of consumer information that is shared with variousmerchants, as well as the eligible merchants and/or merchant types thatmay access some or all of a consumer profile (e.g., based on exchangingthe digital consumer token with server 104). For example, consumerprofile management circuitry 410 of the consumer device may beconfigured to provide a rights management application that allows theconsumer to define the sharing rules. As such, the consumer can carrythe consumer device and broadcast the digital consumer token to merchantdevices without the concern that sensitive information associated withthe consumer account record and/or a consumer profile will be sharedwith unauthorized (e.g., merchant) devices. Furthermore, the consumer isnot required or prompted to provide individual permission at eachmerchant shop or merchant device connection because the predefinedsharing rules may be used.

In some embodiments, the sharing rules may define detailed taxonomies ofconsumer profiles and/or consumer information that is automaticallyshared and that which is only shared with express consumerauthorization. For example, a sharing rule for a “medical patient”consumer profile that includes a consumer’s medical history may specifythat the consumer profile is only to be shared upon an expressauthorization from the consumer. In another example, a sharing rule maydefine portions of consumer information of a consumer profile as beingpublicly shared and portions as being shared only upon expressauthorization. As discussed in greater detail below with respect to FIG.10 , some embodiments may further include public consumer profiles andprivate consumer profiles.

At 614, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toassociate the consumer profile(s) with the digital consumer token. Insome embodiments, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may generate asingle consumer profile for each consumer account record and digitalconsumer token. In some embodiments, each of multiple consumer profilesmay be associated with a different digital consumer token. Here, eachdigital consumer token may uniquely identify not only the consumeraccount record, but also the associated consumer profile.

At 616, consumer profile service circuitry 210 and/or data collectioncircuitry 212 may be configured to track the consumer and/or consumeraccount record. For example, the tracking may be performed based onreceiving the digital consumer token from merchant devices in connectionwith transaction data, location data, etc. Also as discussed above, thetracking may be used to update consumer profiles for subsequent merchantsharing and/or customized point-of-sale interface creation. Thediscussion of method 700 and FIG. 7 below may be applicable at 616.Method 600 may proceed to 618 and end.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 700 for updatingconsumer profiles and/or consumer information based on tracking consumeractivity in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments,method 700 may be performed in connection with method 600, such as at616.

Method 700 may begin at 702 and proceed to 704, where point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 of one or more servers 104 may be configured toreceive a digital consumer token from a merchant device indicating thatthe consumer device has provided the digital consumer token to themerchant device. For example, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to connect with merchant devices 110A-110N and consumerdevices 108A-108N via network 112. The consumer device may be configuredto provide the digital consumer token to the merchant device when theconsumer device is within proximity to the merchant device, such as uponentering a merchant shop where the merchant device is located andforming a network connection (e.g., a direct wireless connection and/orPAN connection) with the merchant device. In another example, theconsumer device may be configured to provide the digital consumer tokento the merchant device via network 112, which in turn may be provided tothe one or more servers 104 by the merchant device via network 112. Insome embodiments, rather than transferring a digital consumer token, theconsumer device may receive a digital merchant token that identifies themerchant device and/or merchant. Here, the consumer device may providethe digital merchant token to the one or more servers, and thus the oneor more servers are able to associate the consumer device with themerchant device and/or merchant.

At 706, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to, inresponse to receiving the digital consumer token, identify a consumeraccount record based on the digital consumer token. For example, theconsumer account record may be identified as the consumer account recordassociated with the digital consumer token at 608 of method 600. In someembodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured toquery the consumer database using the digital consumer token, and inresponse, may receive consumer data associated with the consumer accountrecord.

At 708, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to providea consumer profile associated with consumer account record to themerchant device. For example, the consumer profile may be provided witha point-of-sale interface to facilitate consumer service includingadding items to a tab and completing transactions for the items. Theconsumer profile may include the discretionary data provided by theconsumer device and authorized by the consumer for sharing with themerchant. In some embodiments, the consumer profile may include othertypes of electronic marketing information (e.g., location data,transaction data, clickstream data, etc.) which can be learned based ontracking consumer behaviors or activities with the digital consumertoken.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to determine a selected consumer profile from a plurality ofconsumer profiles associated with the digital consumer token. Forexample, the consumer profile may be determined based on the associatedsharing rules and the merchant or merchant type. As such, the “foodie”profile may be selected for a restaurant merchant or the “clothingshopper” profile for a retail merchant. In another example, based onsharing rules, portions of consumer information associated with the“foodie” profile may be shared automatically with the restaurantmerchant, while the consumer device may be prompted for expressauthorization for sharing other portions of consumer information asstipulated by the sharing rules. Furthermore, various consumer devicesignals and/or other real-time signals (e.g., time, consumer devicelocation, weather data, etc.) may also be used to select a particularconsumer profile. For example, by tracking consumer device locationsover time and/or based on discretionary data received from consumerdevices, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may associate particularlocations and times as sharing rules for particular consumer profiles.The associated locations and times of a consumer profile, for example,may be compared with a current consumer device location and currenttime, to select an applicable consumer profile.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 configured toprovide the consumer profile may include the point-of-sale servicecircuitry being configured to, without requesting an authorization fromthe consumer device, provide a public consumer bio associated with thedigital consumer token to the merchant device. Advantageously, aconsumer may generate and/or update the public consumer profile data ata prior time (e.g., at home), and thus can specify the types ofinformation that is freely shared with merchants and without requiringconsumer input when the information is shared with merchant devices.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be furtherconfigured to provide private digital consumer information whensuitable. For example, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to provide an interface and/or request to the consumer devicefor express authorization to share the private digital consumerinformation with the merchant device. The express authorization may begenerated via the consumer device and can take various forms, such as atouch on a touchscreen, a voice command, a facial expression, a motionof the consumer captured by a camera and/or of the consumer devicecaptured by a motion sensor, etc. In some embodiments, the expressauthorization may be generated via the merchant device, or anon-point-of-sale device of the merchant. For example, the merchantdevice and/or one or more cameras may be positioned around a merchantlocation for capturing facial expressions or the like, and reporting thecaptured information to the point-of-sale service circuitry 214. Thecontent of the private consumer information may also be set at a priortime to the sharing with merchants, which advantageously reduces therequired consumer inputs for approving the private consumer informationat the time of sharing. For example, a single click, tap, key press,etc. on the consumer device may be used to approve sharing of storedinformation that has been designated as private consumer information.

In response to receiving the express authorization, point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 may be configured to provide the private digitalconsumer information to the merchant device. The consumer may be allowedto define the types of consumer information that is kept as privatedigital consumer information, which may include payment information,medical health information, clothing size information, sensitivebiographical information, etc.). Furthermore, in some embodiments,sharing rules may be defined which allocates portions of consumerinformation as being part of the public consumer bio and other portionsof consumer information as being part of the private digital consumerinformation that requires further authorization for sharing.

In some embodiments, the consumer device may be configured to providethe digital consumer token with at least a portion of the consumerprofile (and/or consumer information) directly the merchant device andwithout assistance from service 102. For example, consumer devices andmerchant devices may be provided with interoperability via a tokensharing standard that specifies the format and other requirements ofmessages to exchange digital consumer tokens for consumer information.Additionally or alternatively, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 maybe configured to provide application programming interfaces (APIs) tothe consumer devices and merchant devices to facilitate thefunctionality discussed herein with respect to consumer profile sharing.In some embodiments, merchants may be allowed to bid and/or otherwiseprovide incentives to consumers for sharing consumer profiles and/orconsumer information with merchant devices.

In some embodiments, a merchant might offer to pay for consumerdemographic data and/or consumer profile data related to products orservices offered by the merchant. It should be appreciated however, thata merchant may not need to list any products or services via the PAservice in order to obtain such data. For example, the PA service mayenable merchants to access electronic marketing data offered via the PAservice based on a subscription model. The one or more merchant devices306 may also receive electronic compensation data from the server 302.For example, when a promotion or product is sold by the PA service onbehalf of the merchant, a portion of the received funds may betransmitted to the merchant. The compensation data may includeinformation sufficient to notify the merchant that such funds are beingor have been transmitted. In some embodiments, the compensation data maytake the form of an electronic wire transfer directly to a merchantaccount. In some other embodiments, the compensation data may indicatethat a promotion or product has been purchased, but the actual transferof funds may occur at a later time. For example, in some embodiments,compensation data indicating the sale of a promotion may be providedimmediately, but funds may not be transferred to the merchant until thepromotion is redeemed by the consumer.

After the consumer information has been provided to the merchant device,the merchant device may be configured to generate electronic marketinginformation (e.g., transaction data) which can be used to further updatea consumer profile. At 710-716, data collection circuitry 212 of the oneor more servers 104 may be configured to receive the electronicmarketing information from merchant devices and/or the consumer device.One or more of the examples of electronic marketing informationdiscussed at 710-716 may be received (e.g., not necessarily in the ordershown in FIG. 7 ) and used to programmatically update one or moreconsumer profiles associated with the consumer account record.

At 710, data collection circuitry 212 may be configured to receive adigital consumer token in connection with transaction data from amerchant device. Point-of-sale circuitry 510 of the merchant device maybe configured to provide the point-of-sale interface for associatingitems (e.g., menu items for a restaurant merchant) with a tab andfacilitating a transaction for the associated items. The transactiondata of the transaction may indicate consumer payment or billinginformation, consumer shipping information, items purchased by theconsumer, a merchant rewards account number associated with theconsumer, the type of shipping selected by the consumer for fulfillmentof the transaction, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, the consumer device may be configured to send thedigital consumer token to token interface circuitry 512 of the merchantdevice when the consumer device is at or near the merchant device. Inresponse, token interface circuitry 512 may be configured to send thedigital consumer token to server 104, such as via network 112 to datacollection circuitry 212 and/or consumer profile service circuitry 210.

In some embodiments, the consumer device and merchant device may beconfigured to form a direct wireless connection when the consumer deviceis within a direct wireless communicable range of the merchant devicefor sharing of the digital consumer token (e.g., among other things).For example, the direct wireless connection may include a personal areanetwork (PAN) connection utilizing one or more Bluetooth protocols.Additional details regarding presence-based direct wireless connectionsbetween consumer devices and merchant devices, applicable in someembodiments, are discussed in U.S. Pat. Application No. 13/801,610,titled “Consumer Presence Based Deal Offers,” which is incorporated byreference herein in its entirety. In another example, the consumerdevice and merchant device may communicate with each other via network112. In some embodiments, the transaction data may include consumerapproval data signed or encrypted with the digital consumer token, whichis also discussed in greater detail in U.S. Pat. Application No.13/801,610.

In some embodiments, a digital consumer token may be configured toprovide a proven referral chain of consumers. For example, a consumerdevice upon receiving a digital consumer token from a different consumerdevice in connection with a referral may be configured to sign thereceived consumer device with the digital consumer token of the consumerdevice. As such, upon receiving the signed digital consumer token, datacollection circuitry 212 may be able to determine both the consumeraccount record associated with the consumer device and the referrer.

In some embodiments, digital consumer tokens may be used to form groupsof consumers. For example, multiple digital consumer tokens may becombined and/or otherwise collected to generate family or group tokens.The group can then be used to split bill payments, create (e.g., ad hoc,based on real-time consumer device signals and consumer profileinformation) promotional offers, among other things.

At 712, data collection circuitry 212 may be configured to receive thedigital consumer token in connection with location data from a merchantdevice. The merchant device at 712 may be same merchant device asdiscussed at 710, or may be a different merchant device associated witha different merchant. In that sense, the consumer’s activity at variousmerchant shops may be collected by server 104.

The location data may indicate the location of the consumer device. Insome embodiments, data collection circuitry 212 of server 104 may beconfigured to determine the location data based on a merchant locationassociated with the merchant device. For example, each merchant device110A-110N may be associated with a merchant location where the merchantdevice is located. As discussed above, when the consumer device comeswithin the direct wireless communicable range of the merchant device(e.g., 10 meters), the consumer device may provide the digital consumertoken to the merchant device. Data collection circuitry 212 maydetermine the location data based on receiving the digital consumertoken from the merchant device associated with the merchant location.

In some embodiments, data collection circuitry 212 may be alternativelyor additional configured to receive location data from the consumerdevice. For example, location services circuitry 414 of the consumerdevice may be configured to determine the location data and provide thelocation data to data collection circuitry 212 via network 112. Locationservices circuitry 414 may be configured to determine the location databased one or more of global positioning service receivers, indoornavigation systems, cellular tower triangulation techniques, videosurveillance systems, and/or radio frequency identification (RFID)location systems.

At 714, data collection circuitry 212 may be configured to receiveclickstream data from the consumer device associated with the digitalconsumer token. The clickstream data may include electronic marketinginformation indicating content viewed, accessed, edited, or retrieved byconsumers. As discussed above, various consumer device interactions thatmay be received from the consumer device may include mouse-over eventsand durations, the amount of time spent by the consumer viewingparticular content, the rate at which impressions of particular contentresult in sales associated with that content, demographic informationassociated with each particular consumer, data indicating other contentaccessed by the consumer (e.g., browser cookie data), the time or dateon which content was accessed, the frequency of impressions forparticular content, associations between particular consumers orconsumer demographics and particular impressions, and/or the like

At 716, data collection circuitry 212 may be configured to receivereal-time consumer device signals from the consumer device. For example,the consumer device may include sensor circuitry 412 including one ormore environmental sensors (e.g., temperature, humidity, etc.),biological sensors (e.g., thermometer, heart rate monitor), visualsensors (e.g., a front facing camera configured to capture consumerexpressions and/or gestures), motion sensors (e.g., accelerometer,gyroscope, etc.). In some embodiments, the real-time consumer devicesignals may be received in connection with transaction data, consumerlocation data, and/or clickstream data. Here, the real-time consumerdevice signals may indicate consumer and/or environmental conditions(e.g., at the consumer device location) in which the electronicmarketing information is generated. Advantageously, by leveraging thevarious real-time consumer device signals that may be available,consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toprogrammatically (e.g., without consumer inputs) select consumerprofiles, determine consumer conditions that may be relevant to theconsumer merchant interaction, and/or generate menu displays tailored tothe consumer.

At 718, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may be configured toupdate the consumer profile (and/or consumer account record) based theelectronic marketing data information received at one or more of710-716. For example, consumer profile service circuitry 210 may beconfigured to determine the consumer profile based on querying aconsumer database of consumer account records using the digital consumertoken, and may be further configured to incorporate the electronicmarketing information with the determined consumer profile.

The transaction data and/or clickstream data may indicate consumerpreference for a particular item, merchant, and/or price. The locationdata may indicate preferred merchants and/or locations of the consumer(e.g., home, work, commute route, etc.). The real-time consumer devicesignals may indicate consumer and/or environmental conditions in whichthe consumer expresses the consumer preference. In some embodiments,electronic marketing information received at 706-712 may be furtherassociated with time data indicating a time at which the electronicmarketing information was generated and/or received by data collectioncircuitry 212. The time data may be used to determine temporal aspectsthat impact consumer preferences. The location data may be used todetermine spatial aspects that impact consumer preferences. In thatsense, the consumer profile may include consumer preferences andconditions or criteria (e.g., location, time, sensor data, etc.) underwhich the consumer preferences are applicable.

In some embodiments, such as where a plurality of consumer profiles areassociated with the digital consumer token, consumer profile servicecircuitry 210 may be configured to update multiple consumer profilesdetermined to be relevant based on the electronic marketing information.For example, transaction data from a restaurant merchant device may beused to update the “foodie” profile. In another example, clickstreamdata indicating promotional content viewed, accessed, edited, orretrieved by the consumer may be used to update the “shopper” profile.Method 700 may then proceed to 716 and end.

Prescient and Adaptive Point-of-Sale Interfaces

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 800 of adapting apoint-of-sale interface in accordance with some embodiments. Method 800may be performed by point-of-sale service circuitry 214 to providepoint-of-sale interfaces to the merchant device that are adaptive toconsumer preferences, among other things. In some embodiments, themerchant device may include menu management circuitry 514 configured toperform some or all of the steps of method 800.

Method 800 may begin at 802 and proceed to 804, where point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 of one or more servers 104 may be configured toreceive menu item data from a merchant device 110 associated with amerchant indicating menu items offered by the merchant and associatedingredients of the menu items. For example, menu management circuitry514 may be configured to receive the menu item data from menu managementcircuitry 514 of merchant device 110 via network 112. In someembodiments, the menu item data may further indicate associatedcategories and/or other taxonomy of menu items (e.g., lunch items,dinner items, appetizers, deserts, drinks, etc.). In some embodiments,the menu item data may include price data indicating prices associatedwith the menu items offered by the merchant.

At 806, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to receiveinventory data from the merchant device indicating available ingredientsof menu items offered by the merchant. For example, the inventory datamay indicate that supply of an ingredient of the menu item has beenexhausted or is otherwise unavailable. In some embodiments, datacollection circuitry 212 and/or point-of-sale service circuitry 214 maybe configured to determine the inventory data based on transaction datareceived from the consumer device. For example, the transaction data mayinclude an indication of purchased (e.g., menu) items. Point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 may be further configured to determine ingredientsassociated with the purchased items, and remove the ingredients from theavailable ingredients to determine the inventory data. In someembodiments, the inventory data may define available inventory at theitem level (e.g., in alternative or addition to the ingredient level).For example, the inventory data may indicate available menu items of themenu items offered by the merchant.

At 808, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to receivea digital consumer token from a merchant device indicating that theconsumer device has provided the consumer device to the merchant device.The merchant device that receives the digital consumer token at 808 maybe same device that provided the inventory data at 806 (and/or the menuitem data at 804), or alternatively, may be a different device. In someembodiments, the merchant device that provides the inventory data may bepart of a backend inventory system. The backend inventory system mayinclude bar code readers, RFID readers, or other inventory managementdevices. In contrast, the merchant device that receives the digitalconsumer token at 808 may be a point-of-sale device of the merchant. Insome embodiments, the same merchant device may be configured to performeach of the steps discussed in method 800.

At 810, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to, inresponse to receiving the digital consumer token, identify a consumeraccount record based on the digital consumer token. For example, theconsumer account record may be identified as the consumer account recordassociated with the digital consumer token at 608 of method 600. In someembodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured toquery the consumer database using the digital consumer token, and inresponse, may receive an indication of the consumer account record.

At 812, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured todetermine candidate menu items from menu items offered by the merchantbased on the inventory data and the menu item data. As discussed above,the inventory data may indicate available ingredients of the menu itemfor preparation and the menu item data may indicate the associatedingredients of the menu items. In some embodiments, point-of-saleservice circuitry 214 may be configured to determine each of the menuitems offered by the merchant and/or defined through the menu data ascandidate menu items.

At 814, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured todetermine menu item scores for the candidate menu items based onelectronic marketing information associated with the consumer accountrecord. The menu item scores may provide an indication as to therelevance of the menu item to the consumer account record and/orconsumer profile. As discussed (e.g., in methods 600 and 700), theelectronic marketing information used to determine the menu item scoresmay include discretionary data, clickstream data, transaction data,consumer location data, one or more real-time consumer device signals.The electronic marketing information may further include consumerinformation associated with a public consumer profile and/or a privateconsumer profile.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information used todetermine the menu item scores may include consumer price preference.For example, the consumer price preference data may be compared withprice data indicating prices associated with the menu items offered bythe merchant. In some embodiments, the consumer price preference datamay be determined based on one or more of the transaction data, theclickstream data, and the discretionary data. For example, the consumerprice preference data may indicate a targeted price range determinedbased on tracking the consumer activity (e.g., purchases of similaritems or categories) with the digital consumer token as discussed inmethod 700. In another example, the consumer price preference data maybe determined based on discretionary data (e.g., a consumer definedprice range) provided from the consumer device. In some embodiments,point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to determine theprice of the menu items dynamically. For example, price may bedetermined based on system-wide trends (e.g., based on transaction datafrom multiple merchants) to provide price elasticity and/or comparativepricing capabilities.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to determine the menu item scores based on the electronicmarketing information associated with the consumer profile. For example,circuitry 214 may receive the electronic marketing information includingone or more real-time consumer device signals indicating one or more ofa consumer device time and a consumer device location, determine aselected consumer profile from the plurality of consumer profiles basedon the one or more real-time consumer device signals, and provide theselected consumer profile to the merchant device via the network.Various other real-time consumer device signals discussed herein mayalso be used, including those from wearable devices such as electronicwristbands or glasses.

At 816, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured todetermine a ranking of the candidate menu items based on the menu itemscores. For example, menu items with higher menu item scores may beranked higher than menu items with lower scoring menu item scores.

At 818, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured todetermine selectable menu items of a menu display from the candidatemenu items based on the ranking. For example, menu items having menuitem scores that satisfy a predefined threshold may be selected forinclusion as a selectable menu item of the menu display.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to create a default menu item. The default menu item mayinclude each menu item offered by the merchant, or each menu itemoffered that is currently available as determined based on inventorylevels. Here, based on the consumer data, point-of-sale servicecircuitry 214 may update default items, such as by removing undesirableitems, reordering items, adding custom items, etc.

At 820, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured togenerate a point-of-sale interface including the menu display includingthe selectable menu items. As discussed above, the electronic marketinginformation used to select menu items or otherwise configure thepoint-of-sale interface may include data collected by the merchant(e.g., in the course previous transactions), or may include third partydata received from a third party system and/or other one or more otherthird party merchant(s) that use the (e.g., central) PA service.Furthermore, the point-of-sale interfaces customized for the consumermay be updated and improved over time based on continued receiving andprocessing of electronic marketing information (e.g., transaction data,real-time consumer device signals, discretionary data, etc.). Theelectronic marketing information may be generated by the merchantdevice, a third party merchant device and/or system, and/or the consumerdevice. Advantageously, a single merchant device may be able toprogrammatically generate a customized point-of-sale interface for eachidentified consumer. As such, the merchant inputs required to facilitatecustomized service is decreased and more complex data manipulations(e.g., adding or removing an ingredient, custom orders, facilitatingsecure payments, etc.) is simplified and more efficient.

At 822, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to providethe point-of-sale interface to the merchant device that sent theconsumer device token, such as via network 112. For example, themerchant device may be a tablet computer that is given to consumers attheir table for reviewing the menu display, or used by a merchantoperator while assisting the consumers at the table. The merchant may beallowed to select between multiple customized menu displays based on theconsumer being served. In some embodiments, a near field communicationor other proximity detection technique may be used such that customizedmenus are selected for presentation in the menu display based onproximity of the merchant device to consumer devices. In someembodiments, the point-of-sale interface may alternatively oradditionally be provided to the consumer device associated with theconsumer device token (e.g., via a mobile device app).

In some embodiments, the point-of-sale interface may include adaptivedisplays that provide upsell, bundling, and/or other recommendations formenu item that may be particularly relevant or otherwise featured forthe consumer.

In some embodiments, the electronic marketing information may indicatean undesirable ingredient, such as an allergic or otherwise disfavoredfood type. Point-of-sale service circuitry 402 may exclude a menu itemincluding the undesirable ingredient, or may include with the menu itemwith an indication that the menu item includes the undesirableingredient.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may provide awarning message when a menu item including an undesirable ingredient isadded to a tab. For example, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to: receive input data indicating a selected menu item fromthe selectable menu items of the menu display, in response to receivingthe input data indicating the selected menu item, determine whether theselected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient based on the menuitem data indicating the ingredients of the menu items; and provide awarning indication (e.g., a pop up display) to the point-of-saleinterface when the selected menu item includes the undesirableingredient. In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 mayprovide a remove ingredient button to the point-of-sale interface whenthe selected menu item includes the undesirable ingredient. Based onselection of the remove ingredient button, point-of-sale servicecircuitry 214 may be configured to associate the selected menu itemwithout the undesirable ingredient with the tab. A “button,” as usedherein, may be a virtual graphic, icon, shape, etc., that is presentedwithin an interface. In another example, an undesirable ingredient maybe removed from menu items that include the ingredient by default.Advantageously, selection of the menu item may result in adding the menuitem to the order and with the undesired ingredient removed without anyadditional merchant inputs (e.g., specifically to remove theingredient). The consumer profile information and/or electronicmarketing information may be leveraged to generate point-of-saleinterfaces and associated functionality that customized for consumers.

In some embodiments, the point-of-sale interface may be adjusted fordifferent merchant employee capabilities or functions. For example,point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to track merchantinteractions and inputs for merchant accounts, where each merchantaccount is associated with a particular user (e.g., an employee,manager, representative, clerk, etc.). Based on the inputs,point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may determine a skill scoreindicating the merchant’s familiarity or capability with the interface.Depending on the familiarity or skill score, various functionality maybe enabled or disabled. For example, the point-of-sale interface mayinclude more contextual hints or fewer features for less advanced usedthan more advanced users. In some embodiments, similar inferences may bemade for consumer device inputs on the consumer device, and variousconsumer device interfaces may also be changed accordingly. In someembodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured toprovide other merchant management functionalities, such as automatedlabor management, employee stress markers (e.g., heart rate, bloodpressure, etc.) based on signals from wearable merchant devices, trackmisappropriated goods, etc.

In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may beconfigured to customize the point-of-sale interface based on the devicespecifications of the receiving merchant device or consumer device. Forexample, the merchant device may be a tablet, while the consumer devicemay be a mobile phone. Here, the different screen dimensions and otherspecifications may be used to further update the point-of-sale interfaceincluding the visual appearance, location, or size of various interfacecomponents (e.g., menus, buttons, images, etc.).

At 824, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to receivetransaction data from the merchant device generated via thepoint-of-sale interface. The discussion at 710 of method 700 may beapplicable at 824. In some embodiments, point-of-sale service circuitry214 may be configured to provide different point-of-sale workflows orfunctionality. For example, a single merchant may be associated withmultiple merchant devices that are dedicated to different roles, such aswait staff, manager, chef, etc. Point-of-sale service circuitry 214 maybe configured to provide the consumer information, profiles, menu itemdata, menu displays, etc. to a suitable merchant device based on therole of the merchant user. In some embodiments, point-of-sale servicecircuitry 214 may be configured to configure workflows based on onlineconsumer device inputs. For example, consumers may be allowed to selectmenu items via network 112 (e.g., the Internet when the consumer deviceis not proximate to the merchant device), which may be associated with atab. Here, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured tofacilitate post item selection functionality when the consumer deviceenters the merchant shop, such as automatic item preparation, billcreation, table reservation, etc.

At 826, point-of-sale service circuitry 214 may be configured to updatethe consumer account record based the transaction data. The discussionat 718 of method 700 may be applicable at 826. Method 800 may thenproceed to 828 and end.

Menu Item Attribute Discovery

FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 900 of menu itemattribute discovery in accordance with some embodiments. For example,based on receiving various sensor data, method 900 may be performed toprogrammatically and seamlessly (e.g., without requiring manualintervention) generate menu item data. The menu item data may includeingredients and their amounts for menu items, and may also Method 900may be performed by kitchen circuitry 516 of a merchant device 110and/or by kitchen service circuitry 216 of one or more servers 104. Forexample, kitchen circuitry 516 may be part of a merchant device that islocated in the kitchen of a restaurant merchant that communicates withkitchen service circuitry 216. In another example, kitchen circuitry 516and/or processor 502 of merchant device 110 may be configured to performsome or all of the steps of method 900.

Method 900 may begin at 902 and proceed to 904, where kitchen servicecircuitry 216 of one or more servers 104 may be configured to initiatemonitoring of menu item preparation. In some embodiments, kitchenservice circuitry 216 may be configured to receive menu item data frompoint-of-sale circuitry 510 that indicates menu items have been added toa tab, such as via the point-of-sale interface as discussed at 820.Subsequent to receiving the menu data, kitchen service circuitry 216 maybe configured to facilitate preparation of each menu item. Additionallyor alternatively, a preparer may be allowed to select a particular menuitem for preparation. When menu item data is available, kitchen servicecircuitry 216 may be configured to provide menu item data regarding theselected menu item (e.g., known ingredients, amounts, preparationinstructions, etc.) to a display of the merchant device. The display mayinclude an indication of ingredients, timer, preparation steps, etc. Insome embodiments, the display may be located on a wearable device, suchas electronic glasses or a wristband (e.g., including a display).

At 906, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to receivesensor data indicating merchant inclusion of an ingredient with the menuitem. The sensor data may be used to generate the menu item data,monitor menu item preparation conformity to the stored menu item data,and/or to update the stored menu item data based on the received sensordata.

In some embodiments, the menu item preparer may wear a wristband deviceand/or other wearable device configured to generate the sensor data. Thewearable device may be worn on a chef or other preparer of the item,such as around the hands in an example of a wristband device. Thewearable device may include a radio frequency identification (RFID)reader configured to interrogate RFID tags when brought within proximity(e.g., near field range) of the RFID tags. At the food preparationstation, each ingredient container may include an RFID tag such thatwhen a preparer wearing the wristband reaches into a container, the RFIDreader may record an identifier of the container. Based on receiving aparticular identifier, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configuredto determine an ingredient and generate menu item data that associatesthe ingredient with the menu item.

In some embodiments, the wearable device may be configured to facilitatepreparation, including special orders or modifications. For example,when the preparer’s hand brings the wearable device to an ingredientcontainer of an excluded ingredient (e.g., based on consumer data suchas allergies, merchant input, etc.), the wearable device may generate anaudio or tactile (e.g., vibrational) indication. In another example,when the wearable device is brought into proximity with an ingredientcontainer that includes a wanted ingredient, the wearable device maygenerate a different audio or tactile indication.

In another example, image recognition techniques may be used. Forexample, the wearable device may be electronic glasses configured torecord images of the wearer’s view to generate image data. Kitchenservice circuitry 216 may be further configured to process the imagedata to determine the ingredients being added to a menu item and/orremoved from an ingredient container. In some embodiments, thecontainers may include barcodes that can be visually recognized bykitchen service circuitry 216 using image processing and recognitiontechniques.

At 908, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to determine,based on the sensor data, an amount of the ingredient included with themenu item. Ingredient containers may include and/or be placed on scalesconfigured to measure weight. Differences in weight, before aningredient is removed from the ingredient container versus after it isremoved in the process of preparing a menu item, may be used todetermine amounts of the ingredient that belongs in the menu item. Insome embodiments, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured toaverage and/or otherwise incorporate multiple readings for a menu itemto determine more reliable ingredient amounts. Furthermore, kitchenservice circuitry 216 may provide user interfaces to the merchant devicethat allow the merchant to enter ingredients and amounts. In someembodiments, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be further configured toprovide indications as to whether the amount of an ingredient beingadded is too much or too little, such as by comparing current changes inweight of the ingredient container against stored (e.g., in database106) menu item data indicating ingredient amounts.

At 910, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to determine,based on the sensor data, an order that ingredients were added to themenu item during preparation and/or other preparation instructions. Forexample, kitchen service circuitry 216 may monitor the times at whichdifferent ingredients are added to determine the order of ingredients.Furthermore, kitchen service circuitry 216 may programmaticallydetermine other preparation instructions or steps, such as temperaturesof various cooking steps (e.g., based on sensor data fromthermometer(s)), the times in which an item is kept at a particulartemperature, optional or substitute ingredients, etc.

At 912, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to determinewhether preparation of the menu item is completed. For example, wherekitchen service circuitry 216 can access stored preparation instructions(e.g., including the ingredients to be added, amounts, times,temperatures, etc.), kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured touse the sensor data for monitoring preparation to determine whether thepreparation has been completed in accordance with the preparationinstructions. For example, where an ingredient has been left out,kitchen service circuitry 216 may provide an indication to the kitchendisplay or other communication (e.g., audio in the example of awristband device without video capability).

In response to determining that preparation is incomplete, method 900may return to 906, where kitchen service circuitry 216 may continue toreceive sensor data associated with preparation of the menu item. Inresponse to determining that preparation is complete, method 900 mayproceed to 914, where kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured togenerate menu item data indicating associated ingredients of the menuitem. Furthermore, the menu item data may indicate any other preparationinstructions. In some embodiments, kitchen service circuitry 216 may beconfigured to determine that preparation is complete based on a merchantinput from the user interface provided to the merchant device.

At 916, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to confirm themenu item data based on merchant device input and/or crowdsource menuitem data. For example, user interface of the merchant device may beprovided with the menu item data generated during the monitoring of thepreparation. The user interface may allow the merchant to confirm themenu item data and make any appropriate adjustments. Furthermore, theuser interface may allow merchant to define categories and/or taxonomiesof (e.g., menu) items. Merchants may be allowed to share their item dataand provide recommendations to each other via merchant devices.

In some embodiments, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured tointerface with different merchant types or verticals. Here, differentmerchants may define different categories or taxonomies for item (orservice) data. For example, merchants can define retail taxonomies,clothing taxonomies, food taxonomies, events/movies taxonomies, etc.

In some embodiments, the menu item data may be compared with and/orother determined based on crowdsource menu item data. For example,kitchen service circuitry 216 of system 102 may collect menu item datafrom different merchant devices 110A-110N. Based on the merchant itemdata collected from different merchants, including category and taxonomydata, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to build menu itemprofiles. For example, a menu item profile for Caesar Salad may includemenu item data collected from multiple restaurants offering Caesar Saladwith the most common ingredients and/or amounts.

In some embodiments, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured toaggregate data from multiple (e.g., all) merchants of system 100. Forexample, kitchen service circuitry 216 may generate surveys, tracktransaction data, analyze menu data, among other things to predictconsumer trends, generate price recommendations, generate detailed(e.g., SKU-level) category or taxonomy data, provide cost controlfeatures, etc.

At 918, kitchen service circuitry 216 may be configured to provide themenu item data to a kitchen display. The menu item data may be used tofacilitate subsequent preparation. For example, the kitchen display maybe a display device located at a preparation station. In anotherexample, the kitchen display may be electronic glasses worn by thepreparer. In another example, the kitchen display may be included with amobile merchant device, such as a tablet. The menu item data may bespecific to the particular merchant, or may include crowdsourced menuitem data. Method 900 may then proceed to 920 and end.

Public and Private Consumer Profiles

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 1000 for providingpublic and private consumer profiles in accordance with someembodiments. The PA service may service as a central system thatfacilitates consumer profile and consumer data sharing with multiplemerchant devices associated with different merchants. Advantageously,the merchant devices may be otherwise unassociated with each other withthe PA service providing interoperability between each of the consumerdevices and merchant devices. The PA service may provide universalconsumer identity management for consumers via efficient, centralizedconsumer interfaces. Based on consumer specifications, the PA servicemay share consumer profiles and consumer information with merchants.Furthermore, the PA service may track consumer activity in the formtransactions or other activity, and may use the tracking toprogrammatically update the consumer profiles. As such, in addition tobeing a centralized supplier of consumer information created byconsumers, the PA service may also be a centralized aggregator ofconsumer and/or transaction data on behalf of merchants. Advantageously,the central aggregation of consumer data may allow the PA service toprovide “big data” capabilities even to smaller merchants that wouldotherwise have lack access to useful or representative aggregated data.

Method 1000 may begin at 1002 and proceed to 1004, where one or moreservers 104 (e.g., including consumer profile service circuitry 210) maybe configured to receive discretionary data from the consumer device.The discussion above at 610 may be applicable at 1002. For example, thediscretionary data may be received via network 112. In some embodiments,server 104 and/or the consumer device (e.g., including consumer profilemanagement circuitry 410) may be configured to provide a consumerinterface to receive consumer device inputs that define thediscretionary data. The discretionary data may include electronicmarketing information provided by the consumer, such as during aregistration, profile creation, profile management or otherfunctionality. For example, the discretionary data may indicate consumerinterests, hobbies, age, gender, group membership, location, among otherthings. In some embodiments, the discretionary data may be generated onthe consumer device via a rights management application, a mobileapplication, a web browser application, etc.

At 1006, the one or more servers 104 may be configured to generate apublic consumer profile based on a first portion of the discretionarydata. For example, the discretionary data received from the consumerdevice may further define sharing rules that indicate which merchants ormerchant types can receive a particular consumer profile and/or aparticular portion of consumer information. In some embodiments, therights management application may prompt the consumer to providediscretionary data intended to be used with the public consumer profile.

A public consumer profile includes consumer information defined as beingshared with merchant devices (e.g., or any other device) withoutrequiring an express consumer input or authorization for each instanceof the sharing. For example, the consumer device may be configured tobroadcast a digital consumer token, and a merchant device that receivesthe digital consumer token may exchange the digital consumer token forthe public consumer profile with PA service 102.

The public consumer profile may include non-sensitive consumerinformation that can facilitate consumer service by merchants usingmerchant devices. For example, the public consumer profile may includefood or allergy preferences of the consumer that may be used by arestaurant merchant or associated merchant device as discussed herein.In another example, a public consumer profile may include dress size, orshoe size, etc. to facilitate consumer interactions with retail clothingmerchants. In some embodiments, a public consumer profile may beanonymous or otherwise not reveal a consumer’s identifying data such asname, image, etc.

At 1008, the one or more servers may be configured to generate a privateconsumer profile based on a second portion of the discretionary data.The private consumer profile may include consumer information that isonly shared based on prompting the consumer to provide expressauthorization for each instance of sharing with a merchant device. Inthat sense, a consumer can create or manage a digital identity, sharingless sensitive consumer information with one or more public consumerprofiles and more sensitive consumer information with one or moreprivate consumer profiles.

At 1010, the one or more servers 104 may be configured to associate thepublic consumer profile and the private consumer profile with a digitalconsumer token or consumer device token. The discussion at 614 of method600 may be applicable at 1010. For example, consumer profile servicecircuitry 210 may be configured to generate a digital consumer token andassociate the digital consumer token with the public consumer profileand/or the private consume profile. In some embodiments, a first digitalconsumer token (or “public consumer token”) may be associated with thepublic consumer profile and a second digital consumer token (or “privateconsumer token”) may be associated with the private consumer profile.

At 1012, the one or more servers 104 may be configured to provide thedigital consumer token to the consumer device. The discussion at 608 ofmethod 600 may be applicable at 1012.

At 1014, the one or more servers 104 (e.g., point-of-sale servicecircuitry 214) may be configured to receive the digital consumer tokenfrom a merchant device. The discussion at 704 of method 700 may beapplicable at 1014. For example, the merchant device may be located at amerchant shop, and in some embodiments, may further providepoint-of-sale functionality at the merchant shop. The merchant devicemay be configured to receive the digital consumer token from theconsumer device, such as via a direct wireless connection (e.g.,Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID, near field communication, etc.). In response toreceiving the digital consumer token, the one or more servers 104 may befurther configured to send the digital consumer token to the PM serviceand/or server 104.

In some embodiments, the consumer device may be configured to wirelesslybroadcast the digital consumer token, such as by using a Bluetoothprotocol or other PAN technology. While broadcasting, the digitalconsumer token may be freely shared with nearby merchant devices, suchas without explicit consumer approval for each instance of the sharing.In some embodiments, the consumer device may provide a user interface orother input capable of enabling or disabling the broadcasting.

At 1016, the one or more servers 104 may be configured to determinewhether the merchant device is authorized to receive the privateconsumer profile. For example, the determination may include determiningwith the merchant associated with the merchant device is a pre-approvedmerchant for receiving a private consumer profile. The merchant devicemay be associated with a merchant such as by receiving a merchantidentifier from the merchant device, login data associated with amerchant account, and/or any other suitable technique. Based ondetermining the merchant using the communications with the merchantdevice, the one or more servers 104 may compare the merchant name,merchant category (e.g., defining types of items offered by themerchant), or characteristics of the merchant (e.g., stored in amerchant database 106 of the PA service 102) with sharing rulesassociated with the private consumer profile to determine whether themerchant is authorized to receive the private consumer profile. In someembodiments, such as where the consumer device token is associated withmultiple private consumer profiles (e.g., for particular purposes), theone or more servers may be configured to determine whether the merchantis authorized to receive any of the multiple private consumer profilesbased on the predefined sharing rules.

In response to determining that the merchant is not authorized toreceive the private consumer profile, method 1000 may proceed 1018,where the one or more servers 104 may be configured to provide thepublic consumer profile to the merchant device. The PM service 102 maythus provide information sharing services on behalf of the consumer withmerchants or other entities. In some embodiments, the one or moreservers 104 may be configured to provide the public consumer profilewithout any determination as to merchant eligibility for a privateconsumer profile, such as programmatically in response to receiving anassociated consumer device token. In some embodiments, the one or moreservers 104 may be further configured to adapt a point-of-sale interfaceof the merchant device based on the public consumer profile. In thatsense, the discussion above in method 800 and FIG. 8 may be applicableto method 1000.

At 1020, the one or more servers 104 may be configured to determinewhether merchant approval data indicating consumer approval for accessto a private consumer profile has been received from the consumerdevice. For example, the consumer device may be configured to send themerchant approval data to the PM service 102 via network 112 based onconsumer device inputs generated on the consumer device. Here, becausethe merchant is not pre-approved for access to a private consumerprofile, the consumer may be provided an opportunity to provide expressauthorization via the consumer interface.

The merchant approval data may take various forms. For example, themerchant approval data may include consumer approval data in connectionwith an electronic payment. Here, the merchant approval data mayindicate express consumer permission for merchant access to payment dataassociated with a private consumer profile. In another example, themerchant approval data may include discretionary data defining sharingrules that indicate the merchant is allowed to access a private consumerprofile. The merchant approval data may be generated by the consumerdevice using various inputs such as a touchscreen input, a voice input,a motion data input (e.g., motion of the device as may be measured by anaccelerometer and/or gyroscope). In some embodiments, the merchantapproval data may further provide for enhanced security, such as byincluding a biometric identifier (e.g., fingerprint, retina scan, etc.),PIN number, etc. In some embodiments, the merchant approval data mayfurther be secured through encryption or electronic signature, such asby applying the digital consumer token (e.g., a random or pseudorandomcode) to facilitate the encryption or electronic signature. In someembodiments, the consumer device may generate the merchant approval databased on a request from the merchant device and/or the point-of-saleservice circuitry of the one or more servers.

In response to determining that merchant approval data for access to aprivate consumer profile has not been received, method 1000 may proceedto 1022, where the one or more servers 104 may be configured tofacilitate a transaction independent of stored payment data (e.g., ifany) associated with the private consumer profile. In some embodiments,a default point-of-sale interface or a point-of-sale interface generatedbased on the public consumer profile may be provided to the merchantdevice to generate transaction data. The payment may be completedwithout using stored payment data, such as via cash, credit card, check,etc.

Returning to 1020, in response to determining that the merchant approvaldata for access to a private consumer profile has been received, method1000 may proceed to 1026, where the one or more servers 104 may beconfigured to facilitate a transaction based on stored payment dataassociated with the private consumer profile.

Returning to 1016, in response to determining that the merchant isauthorized to receive the private consumer profile, method 1000 mayproceed to 1024, where the one or more servers 104 may be configured toprovide the private consumer profile to the merchant device. The one ormore servers 104 may be further configured to adapt a point-of-saleinterface of the merchant device based on the public consumer profile asdiscussed above in connection with method 800 and FIG. 8 . Method 1000may then proceed to 1026 ad discussed above.

At 1028, the one or more servers 104 (e.g., consumer profile servicecircuitry 210) may be configured to update the public and/or privateconsumer profile based on transaction data associated with thetransaction. The discussion at 718 of method 700 may be applicable at1028. In some embodiments, the consumer interface of the consumer devicemay further be configured to allow the consumer to define sharing rulesthat specify the merchants or merchant types for which transaction datamay be used to update a public consumer profile or a private consumerprofile. Furthermore, the consumer may be allowed to access theprogrammatically updated profile data, may modify (e.g., modify, add,remove) the updated profile data, and/or may define sharing rules forthe updated data (e.g., associating the data with one or more public orprivate consumer profiles). In some embodiments, in addition oralternative to transaction data, the public and/or private consumerprofile may be updated based on various electronic marketing informationreceived from consumer devices and/or merchant devices. For example, thepublic and/or private consumer profile may be updated based on real-timeconsumer device signals sent from the consumer device and/or merchantdevice, based on clickstream data received from the consumer device,etc. As discussed above, the electronic marketing information mayinclude third party data received from third party merchant devicesand/or systems.

In some embodiments, some or all of the steps of method 1000 discussedherein with respect to the consumer interface may be performed by theconsumer device, such as by a consumer profile management circuitry 410.For example, the consumer device may provide for the creation ofdiscretionary data, creation of consumer profiles based on discretionarydata, and the sharing of various consumer profiles based on sharingrules. In embodiments where a central system such as the PA service isnot used for profile management, the consumer profiles and associatedconsumer data may be stored on the consumer device (e.g., in a memory)and/or a remote storage that can be accessed by the consumer device forsharing with merchant devices or directly by the merchant devices.Method 1000 may then proceed to 1030 and end.

Conclusion

Many modifications and other embodiments will come to mind to oneskilled in the art to which these embodiments pertain having the benefitof the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and theassociated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that embodimentsand implementations are not to be limited to the specific exampleembodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments areintended to be included within the scope of the appended claims.Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a genericand descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.

That which is claimed:
 1. A system comprising: one or more serversincluding: communications circuitry configured to connect with consumerdevices and merchant devices via a network; consumer profile servicecircuitry configured to: generate a digital consumer token; associatethe digital consumer token with a consumer account record of a consumerdatabase; and provide, via the network, the digital consumer token to aconsumer device of the consumer devices associated with the consumeraccount record; data collection circuitry configured to: receiveconsumer location data associated with one or more location sensors ofthe consumer device; receive real-time consumer condition dataassociated with one or more other sensors that are different than theone or more location sensors, wherein the one or more other sensorscomprise at least a biological sensor related to a real-time consumercondition; access one or more rules from a repository associated withgeneration of one or more point-of-sale interfaces; apply the one ormore rules to the consumer location data and the real-time consumercondition data to generate two or more anonymized profiles related torespective merchant category types and respective profile authorizationtypes; update the consumer account record associated with the digitalconsumer token based on the two or more anonymized profiles associatedwith the consumer location data and the real-time consumer conditiondata; and point-of-sale service circuitry configured to: receive, viathe network, the digital consumer token from a merchant device of themerchant devices to facilitate indication that the consumer device hasprovided the digital consumer token to the merchant device; and inresponse to the digital consumer token being received by thepoint-of-sale service circuitry: identify the consumer account recordbased on the digital consumer token; determine a merchant category typeassociated with the merchant device; determine, based on a consumeraccount identifier for the consumer account record, a profileauthorization type for the merchant device with respect to the consumeraccount record; based on (i) the merchant category type associated withthe merchant device and (ii) the profile authorization type for themerchant device with respect to the consumer account record, select ananonymized profile from the two or more anonymized profiles; determineinventory data, indicative of available ingredients of menu itemsoffered by a merchant associated with the merchant device, based ontransaction data associated with the menu items; determine candidatemenu items for presentation via a point-of-sale interface based on theinventory data associated with the merchant; determine respective menuitem scores for the candidate menu items for presentation via thepoint-of-sale interface based on the consumer location data and thereal-time consumer condition data associated with the selectedanonymized profile; rank the candidate menu items based on therespective menu items scores to generate a ranking of selectable menuitems; generate the point-of-sale interface based on the ranking of theselectable menu items, wherein the selectable menu items are configuredfor rendering via the point-of-sale interface, and wherein thepoint-of-sale interface includes a menu display that includes theselectable menu items; and provide, via the network, the point-of-saleinterface to at least one of the merchant device and the consumerdevice.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein: the point-of-sale servicecircuitry is configured to: determine the candidate menu items based onmenu item data that indicates associated ingredients of the menu items;and determine the selectable menu items from the candidate menu itemsbased on the ranking of the selectable menu items.
 3. The system ofclaim 2, wherein: the menu item data includes price data that indicatesprices associated with the menu items offered by the merchant; and thepoint-of-sale service circuitry configured to determine the respectivemenu item scores includes the point-of-sale service circuitry beingconfigured to compare the price data with a consumer price preferencedetermined based on one or more of transaction data, clickstream data,and discretionary data.
 4. The system of claim 2, wherein the selectablemenu items are ordered via the point-of-sale interface based at least inpart on the ranking of the selectable menu items.
 5. The system of claim1, wherein: the data collection circuitry is further configured toreceive, via the network, menu item data from the merchant device thatindicates menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; and the point-of-sale service circuitry is furtherconfigured to determine the selectable menu items from menu itemsoffered by the merchant based on the menu item data that indicates theassociated ingredients of the menu items and electronic marketing datathat indicates an undesirable ingredient, wherein a menu item thatincludes the undesirable ingredient is: excluded from the selectablemenu items; or included with the selectable menu items with anindication that the menu item includes the undesirable ingredient. 6.The system of claim 1, wherein: the data collection circuitry is furtherconfigured to receive, via the network, menu item data from the merchantdevice indicating menu items offered by the merchant and associatedingredients of the menu items; and the point-of-sale service circuitryis further configured to: receive input data that indicates a selectedmenu item from the selectable menu items of the menu display; and inresponse to the input data being received, determine whether theselected menu item includes an undesirable ingredient based on the menuitem data that indicates the ingredients of the menu items; and providea warning indication to the point-of-sale interface when the selectedmenu item includes the undesirable ingredient.
 7. The system of claim 1,wherein: the data collection circuitry is further configured to receive,via the network, menu item data from the merchant device that indicatesmenu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredients of themenu items; and the point-of-sale service circuitry is furtherconfigured to receive input data that indicates a selected menu itemfrom the selectable menu items of the menu display; in response to theinput data being received, determine whether the selected menu itemincludes an undesirable ingredient based on the menu item data thatindicates the ingredients of the menu items; provide a remove ingredientbutton to the point-of-sale service interface when the selected menuitem includes the undesirable ingredient; and associate the selectedmenu item without the undesirable ingredient with a tab in response to aselection of the remove ingredient button being received.
 8. The systemof claim 1, wherein: the data collection circuitry is further configuredto: receive discretionary data from the consumer device, wherein thediscretionary data indicates one or more of consumer interests, hobbies,age, gender, and group membership; the consumer profile servicecircuitry is configured to create a plurality of consumer profilesassociated with the consumer account record based on the discretionarydata; and the point-of-sale service circuitry is further configured to:in response to the digital consumer token being received: determine aselected consumer profile from the plurality of consumer profiles basedon the real-time consumer condition data; and provide the selectedconsumer profile to the merchant device via the network.
 9. The systemof claim 8, wherein: the discretionary data further indicates eligiblemerchants that are allowed to receive consumer profiles created based onthe discretionary data; and the point-of-sale service circuitry isconfigured to: determine whether the merchant associated with themerchant device is an eligible merchant allowed to receive the selectedconsumer profile based on the discretionary data; and provide theselected consumer profile to the merchant device in response to adetermination that the merchant associated with the merchant device isan eligible merchant.
 10. The system of claim 8, wherein thepoint-of-sale service circuitry is further configured to determine theselectable menu items of the menu display based on the selected consumerprofile.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the digital consumer tokenis generated based on a random code that is independent of consumeridentifying data and the real-time consumer condition data.
 12. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the merchant device is a point-of-saledevice.
 13. The system of claim 1, wherein consumer profile servicecircuitry is further configured to: receive, via the network and fromthe consumer device, discretionary data; generate a public consumerprofile based on a first portion of the discretionary data; generate aprivate consumer profile based on a second portion of the discretionarydata; and in response to the digital consumer token being received,provide, via the network, at least one of the public consumer profileand the private consumer profile to the merchant device.
 14. The systemof claim 1, wherein the consumer account record of the consumer databaseincludes one or more sharing rules that defines merchants authorized toreceive consumer information.
 15. The system of claim 1, wherein theselectable menu items include at least one custom menu item not includedin the candidate menu items, wherein the at least one custom menu itemis determined based on the consumer account record, wherein the menudisplay is characterized by a menu ordering of the selectable menuitems, and wherein the menu ordering is determined based on the consumeraccount record.
 16. The system of claim 1, wherein the consumer locationdata includes first consumer location data associated with a firstconsumer device location, wherein the consumer location data includessecond consumer location data associated with a second consumer devicelocation, and wherein the point-of-sale service circuitry is configuredto generate the point-of-sale interface based on the inventory data, thefirst consumer location data associated with the first consumer devicelocation, and the second consumer location data associated with thesecond consumer device location.
 17. The system of claim 1, wherein thebiological sensor is a thermometer, wherein the real-time consumercondition data comprises real-time consumer temperature data, andwherein the point-of-sale service circuitry is configured to determinethe respective menu item scores for the candidate menu items based onthe real-time consumer temperature data.
 18. The system of claim 1,wherein the biological sensor is a heart rate monitor device, whereinthe real-time consumer condition data comprises real-time consumer heartrate data, and wherein the point-of-sale service circuitry is configuredto determine the respective menu item scores for the candidate menuitems based on the real-time consumer heart rate data.
 19. Amachine-implemented method, comprising: generating, by processingcircuitry of one or more servers, a digital consumer token, wherein theone or more servers are configured to connect with consumer devices andmerchant devices via a network; associating, by the processingcircuitry, the digital consumer token with a consumer account record ofa consumer database; and providing, by the processing circuitry and viathe network, the digital consumer token to a consumer device of theconsumer devices associated with the consumer account record; receiving,by the processing circuitry, consumer location data associated with oneor more location sensors of the consumer device; receiving, by theprocessing circuitry, real-time consumer condition data associated withone or more other sensors that are different than the one or morelocation sensors, wherein the one or more other sensors comprise atleast a biological sensor related to a real-time consumer condition;accessing, by the processing circuitry, one or more rules from arepository associated with generation of one or more point-of-saleinterfaces; applying, by the processing circuitry, the one or more rulesto the consumer location data and the real-time consumer condition datato generate two or more anonymized profiles related to respectivemerchant category types and respective profile authorization types;updating, by the processing circuitry, the consumer account recordassociated with the digital consumer token based on the two or moreanonymized profiles associated with the consumer location data and thereal-time consumer condition data; and receiving, by the processingcircuitry and via the network, the digital consumer token from amerchant device of the merchant devices indicating that the consumerdevice has provided the consumer device to the merchant device; inresponse to the receiving the digital consumer token, and by theprocessing circuitry: identifying the consumer account record based onthe digital consumer token; determining a merchant category typeassociated with the merchant device; determining, based on a consumeraccount identifier for the consumer account record, a profileauthorization type for the merchant device with respect to the consumeraccount record; based on (i) the merchant category type associated withthe merchant device and (ii) the profile authorization type for themerchant device with respect to the consumer account record, selectingan anonymized profile from the two or more anonymized profiles;determining inventory data, indicative of available ingredients of menuitems offered by a merchant associated with the merchant device, basedon transaction data associated with the menu items; determiningcandidate menu items for presentation via a point-of-sale interfacebased on the inventory data associated with the merchant; determiningrespective menu item scores for the candidate menu items forpresentation via the point-of-sale interface based on the consumerlocation data and the real-time consumer condition data associated withthe selected anonymized profile; ranking the candidate menu items basedon the respective menu items scores to generate a ranking of selectablemenu items; generating the point-of-sale interface based on the rankingof the selectable menu items, including configuring the selectable menuitems for rendering via the point-of-sale interface and providing a menudisplay including the selectable menu items via the point-of-saleinterface; and providing, via the network, the point-of-sale interfaceto at least one of the merchant device and the consumer device.
 20. Themethod of claim 19, wherein the generating the point-of-sale interfaceincludes: determining the candidate menu items based on menu item dataindicating associated ingredients of the menu items; and determining theselectable menu items from the candidate menu items based on the rankingof the selectable menu items.
 21. The method of claim 20, wherein: themenu item data includes price data indicating prices associated with themenu items offered by the merchant; and the determining the respectivemenu item scores includes comparing the price data with a consumer pricepreference determined based on one or more of transaction data,clickstream data, and discretionary data.
 22. The method of claim 20,further comprising ordering, by the processing circuitry, the selectablemenu items via the point-of-sale interface based at least in part on theranking of the selectable menu items.
 23. The method of claim 19,wherein: the method further includes, by the processing circuitry:receiving, via the network, menu item data from the merchant deviceindicating menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; and determining the selectable menu items from menuitems offered by the merchant based on the menu item data indicating theassociated ingredients of the menu items and electronic marketing dataindicating an undesirable ingredient, wherein a menu item including theundesirable ingredient is: excluded from the selectable menu items; orincluded with the selectable menu items with an indication that the menuitem includes the undesirable ingredient.
 24. The method of claim 19,wherein: the method further includes, by the processing circuitry:receiving, via the network, menu item data from one or more of themerchant device indicating menu items offered by the merchant andassociated ingredients of the menu items; receiving input dataindicating a selected menu item from the selectable menu items of themenu display; in response to receiving the input data indicating theselected menu item, determining whether the selected menu item includesan undesirable ingredient based on the menu item data indicating theingredients of the menu items; and providing a warning indication to thepoint-of-sale interface when the selected menu item includes theundesirable ingredient.
 25. The method of claim 19, wherein: the methodfurther includes, by the processing circuitry: receiving, via thenetwork, menu item data from one or more of the merchant deviceindicating menu items offered by the merchant and associated ingredientsof the menu items; and receiving input data indicating a selected menuitem from the selectable menu items of the menu display; in response tothe receiving the input data indicating the selected menu item,determining whether the selected menu item includes an undesirableingredient based on the menu item data indicating the ingredients of themenu items; providing a remove ingredient button to the point-of-saleservice interface when the selected menu item includes the undesirableingredient; and associating the selected menu item without theundesirable ingredient with a tab in response to receiving a selectionof the remove ingredient button.
 26. The method of claim 19, furthercomprising, by the processing circuitry: receiving discretionary datafrom the consumer device, the discretionary data indicating one or moreof consumer interests, hobbies, age, gender, and group membership;creating a plurality of consumer profiles associated with the consumeraccount record based on the discretionary data; in response to receivingthe digital consumer token: determining a selected consumer profile fromthe plurality of consumer profiles based on the real-time consumercondition data; and providing the selected consumer profile to themerchant device via the network.
 27. The method of claim 26, wherein:the discretionary data further indicates eligible merchants that areallowed to receive consumer profiles created based on the discretionarydata; and the method further includes, by the processing circuitry:determining whether the merchant associated with the merchant device isan eligible merchant allowed to receive the selected consumer profilebased on the discretionary data; and providing the selected consumerprofile to the merchant device in response to determining the merchantassociated with the merchant device is an eligible merchant.
 28. Themethod of claim 26, further comprising, by the processing circuitry,determining the selectable menu items of the menu display based on theselected consumer profile.
 29. The method of claim 19, furthercomprising, generating, by the processing circuitry, the digitalconsumer token based on a random code that is independent of consumeridentifying data and the real-time consumer condition data.
 30. Themethod of claim 19, further comprising, by the processing circuitry:receiving, via the network and from the consumer device, discretionarydata; generating a public consumer profile based on a first portion ofthe discretionary data; generating a private consumer profile based on asecond portion of the discretionary data; and in response to receivingthe digital consumer token, providing, via the network, at least one ofthe public consumer profile and the private consumer profile to themerchant device.